Redemption 2: The Master of Horse
by DNA
Summary: Chapter 8 is now posted...soon to be followed by 9. Senator Gracchus pays a visit to a distraught Lucilla; Lucilla's handmaid has a few secrets of her own, and revelations abound.
1. Default Chapter

Disclaimer: All things Dreamworks

Disclaimer:All things Dreamworks...whatever...I would guess everyone knows that by now.Well, here it is, the second part of _Redemption_.Actually this is more of a prelude featuring some of the other characters, and will make more sense if you read _Redemption:Part 1._It also fits into the context of the progressing storyline. I'm very busy, however, and while I'd love to write and read about Roman Britain, Sarmatians, Celtic tribes, and ancient medicine all day, alas, school and work both require my attention.

As for the little tidbit of history behind this, ummmmmm....there really isn't any.Sometimes I'm just very malicious with my characters.I know Lucilla and Quintus are the odd couple, but in reality, Lucilla was remarried after Verus' death in 169CE(actually, if reality comes into this story at all, Lucilla was condemned to death after the first failed plot on her brother's life, but that didn't quite mesh with what I'm writing here).For where this story is going, it just seemed to speak to me, so forgive me all of the fans of Max/Lucilla.It's amazing what can be excused in terms of creative license, and I intend to take free advantage of it.

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_Redemption:Part 2--The Master of Horse_

**Prologue:Beyond the West Lies Death**

**Mid-summer 182 CE**

At first, they were there all the time.The way they watched her was similar to how she once had seen a cat look as it stalked a rodent close to its own size through the guttered sewers of Rome's back-washed alleys:somewhat wary, ever conscious of the danger to itself, but each creature knowing with inevitable conclusion the rat would be strangled in the fangs of the feline.That was how they watched her--like she was the rat entrapped in their jaws, wrenching her this way and that, discarding her when that last part clinging to life finally escaped.

But there was no escape.That was why the two guards watched her, day and night.And the Nubian girl who helped her bathe and dress in the mornings, took her clothes in the evening, slept in the same room as her.Ever watchful, ever aware to any object--a hairpin, a brooch from her stola, the fine tipped points of her comb.Anything that could potentially be used in hastening her escape to the afterlife.The guards and the Nubian girl watched her like the cat its prey.Not out of great concern for her well being, but to ensure her prison stayed just that--a prison.Down to the very confines of her body, that nowadays, housed a mind hanging by a thread to sanity; a prison for her soul, that intangible part of herself wishing to flee to the peace of the great beyond.

Her son was dead.Now she wished to be so as well.

But they wouldn't let her--not the guards, their stoic faces unmoved by the depth of her grief, silent tracks of tears the only evidence of her unending sorrow.Not the Nubian girl, who combed out her hair every night in silence.They simply watched.Always watched.

Even now the guards were watching, sitting as she was on a plush divan, in the open air of the Capri morning, the blush quartz of the marble floor brightened by the summer sun as a cool breeze, fragrant with roses, whispered upon the dew filled air, blowing gently across the porch.She looked passively at each of the them, the guards, standing on either side of the entrance to the porch, before turning to stare out across the rocky, bleached cliffs and blue gem of the Mediterranean, affording the panoramic view from the villa.

She couldn't blame them, she supposed.They would have to answer to Virius if anything happened to her.Or rather, if she managed to elude their careful vigilance for a precious second and fling herself from the cliffs onto the rocky shore below.

The man was vile, pure and plain, the feeling filling her gut with the leaden weight of fear.He was cruel beyond reason without her brother's excuse for derangement. Virius possessed that cold, calculating intention that she had always loathed in Senator Falco.The sort of man one looked at and was immediately seduced by the beauty of his physical features--well built with olive tones only the purest Latins boasted of, dark brown hair and a nose rivaling the aquiline profiles of the original Caesars.It took one look into his black, black eyes for the glacial indifference to be detected; that motivated caution in all who dared hold his gaze.The kind of gaze which never flickered even as he swiped the killing blow with one cleave of his sword, ending forever the hopes and dreams of a young boy.

Virius looked on the world with frigid contempt.The type of man assured of his rank, believing that all living things fell into a proper order, and the greatest wrong any person could do was to deviate from their place assigned by birth, reckoned throughout life by the lot the Fates.Slave to freeman, soldier to civilian, woman to man.All things had their appropriate order, and to question it was to call upon the heavy hand of justice, judged by the eyes of the Eagle.Thus did Virius view all people.

He held her life in his hands.

Such was his gross amusement, to see a high-ranking woman humbled before the eyes of the Guard for her part in the conspiracy against Commodus.It didn't matter that her brother forced from her the details in their entirety through the worst form of cohersment imaginable, playing her love for her son off that which she held for Maximus.

Or that the Senate, the Guard,her brother, and herself all landed very neatly into the hands of Falco, with Virius Lupus in the background, weaving their own treasonous designs. No one had loved Commodus, certainly not the Senate, and with Falco's name up for consul at the end of the year, with Commodus safely burned on his funeral pyre, Virius was surely promised the prefectship after Quintus's term came to an end.

They needed a scapegoat, and she had served their ends well--the one to blame, whose son was next to inherit the throne.A convenient excuse, accusing her of conspiracy with Gracchus so they might arrest the veteran senator, and later, kill her son, banishing her to Capri.

As for Maximus, he was simply the spoke upon which the wheel of their scheme turned.Use the slave of Rome to rid Her of the mad emperor, and see to his death as well should the match not go as anticipated.Fortunately, it had all worked out very well…for Falco and Virius.Commodus was slain, and Maximus had expended himself to the point of death.She smiled, a bitter twist of lips, into her wine goblet.

At least in that one dimension had she any victory.One could even say the last word.Staring out over the distant expanse of waters, east toward the sand spread coast of the mainland, she clung to one thought, as she had since getting Maximus out of Rome two months before._He lives still.So long as he lives, it does not matter what becomes of me._

Studying the beaten gold cup in her hand, she wished, not for the first time, that Quintus hadn't prevented her from driving the knife into her breast.

No, that wasn't completely true. She knew, even in the vast depths of her sorrow-filled mind, skating at times of the brink of madness, it was those words that kept her from crumbling completely._He lives still._That gave her the strength to look Virius Lupus in the eye with couching defiance, promising silently he would one day pay for the death of her son.

He knew she wasn't cowed, not permanently.That was what fascinated him for she presented a challenge, offered unforeseen diversion, kept him from fulfilling that final task he always alluded to--taking her life.He was not a man used to being challenged.Most feared him--his rank, his cold, harsh justice, the grim alacrity he gleaned using that rank to see others brought low.

Gracchus hadn't feared Virius' rank.Gracchus had feared for his loved ones, his dear wife and children, and the rest of his family, distantly removed from Rome as they may be.It was a sentiment Lucilla could well understand.So her dearest friend, despite Pertinax's promise of re-instatement, had given up his position with the Senate, much to the consternation of Rome's political circle, and the wider dismay of Her populace.

Now Virius was plying his time with her.He'd come regularly in that first month following Commodus' death, at least once a week, on mornings such as this one, with the guards standing watch, one at the entrance to the insular of the villa, the other having moved, by this point in the morning, to the brick-cut wall, over-looking the villa's promontory heights.He'd come, promising anytime soon, the newly appointed Pertinax would issue the official order for her execution.

She'd said nothing, peering at him dispassionately from where she was seated at the table while he whispered over her shoulder in his silkily maligning voice.He'd changed tactics when he realized threats of her own death didn't move her.

Speaking of her son, however, was almost too much.Her nails had bitten through her skin, so hard had she been clenching her hands, trying to not tremble with the suppressed shudder of her silent weeping.

When he'd left that day, she fled to her room, evading the guards who had grown lax during her month of mournful listlessness, ignoring the warning call of the Nubian girl lest she attempt escape through the outer courtyard.She hardly had that much aspiration--to attempt escape, simply flinging herself onto her bed, moaning with stifled grief while she scratched at her cheeks in lament, curled into a fetal position of human misery, uncaring of what the guards or the servant girl saw.

That was how Quintus found her later that afternoon, coming to look after her, ever mindful of his responsibilities when his duties in Rome freed him to visit Capri.So distraught was she, she hadn't resisted when he held her in his arms, letting her cry herself out, cursing him, cursing her father, her brother, and even Maximus.In a world ruled by men, there was little a woman could determine for herself, on her own terms, vying for the protection of her only child, even if she had been the daughter of one Caesar and the sister of another.

She hated Virius most of all.

By the time she had finished her tirade, somewhere between cursing her father for forcing her to marry Verus, and telling Quintus to leave her to her grief, Quintus had instead gotten rid of the guards and the servant girl.He'd bribed the men with a flask of wine and an evening off from watching a keening madwoman, and threatened the girl with a lashing if she didn't find ought else to do with her time for the night.

That had been nearly three weeks ago now, and Virius hadn't returned to further torment her, strangely enough.

Or not so, if what Quintus had to tell her after her grief finally subsided was true.

"Helvius Pertinax is not proving to be as amenable to the Guard as Virius hoped.He has them answering to disciplinary service if they are neglectful of duty and has cut back on their monthly wages, saying the extra funds are better used for repairing public works for Rome and renewing some of the Senatorial finances depleted while Commodus ruled, rather than on whores and wine orgies."

Lingering thoughts of intrigue fled out of Rome with Maximus, had been burned with her son--the last stone of the pyre witnessing the embers of her ambition.Yet, she was only what she would always be:the daughter of one Caesar and sister to another, and her political acumen, cultivated to a fine art over the years, would never fully leave her.

"Banal pleasures begin to pall when one is forced to answer for them.Is that why Virius has stayed in Rome and sent you in his place, because he couldn't explain away his excesses to Pertinax?"

There was a cold derision to her words, a look of ice across her chiseled patrician features that Quintus wavered from slightly before replying, " It's unfortunate, but no.Virius is one of the more exemplary Guards.He's the one over-seeing the disciplining of the men, rather.I came, Lucilla, because a good man died from my adherence to duty, however misplaced I am now realizing it to have been.He once asked me to protect the ones he loved.I didn't and so his family died too.I know he loved--," Breaking off, seeing her swallow hard, and look away across the wide expanse of sky and sea, Quintus changed his words, continuing hesitantly, "I came willingly this time, to do my last duty to him.I know Virius has...not been kind to you, Lady."

She heard his words, but made no immediate reply still studying the wide vista, thinking how strange to set the villa so it faced east.East was the source of sunrise, and new life.The sleeping rooms ought to have been built toward the west, where it was said the sun descended every night to the land of the dead.

When she faced him again, the glacial tones of her voice, the look in her eye had softened some."If there is guilt to be dealt out, Quintus, then it must be shared in equal portions.Maximus' death may lay heavy on your soul, but my son's--," her breath caught for a moment, and she was forced to master herself before continuing."My son's weighs upon mine."She didn't resist when he took her hand in his own, trying to offer what comfort he could.

"You know as well as I, Maximus was simply the most convenient means to an end in ridding Rome of my brother.Had he managed to survive, the Guard—_Hades- rot-their- souls_—," she bit out forcefully, "would have found some other means by which to kill him.They are too fond of their own power, and Maximus proved too much a threat to that.Best he died a martyr for Rome and Her people than being accused of some contrived treason thereafter."

Silence followed her statement for a moment before Quintus, still holding her hand in gentle solace, said, "Not all the Praetorians are as self-serving as you think.I believe in my heart Pertinax would have been good for the throne."

Her gaze shifted to him, her eyes catching the glimpse of sunlight streaming through the filmy gauze of the window terrace."_Would _have been?"With gradual understanding painting her finely cast features to lucid sharpness, she said, "That's the real reason why you came, Quintus, isn't it?You did not want to be party to another conspiracy.See another good man's life taken."

Her observance had been quite accurate.She could see it on his face, in his manner, for he looked down and away, gazing out the window of her room, the interior darkened to a soft pinkish-gold haze with the setting sun.

"That," he agreed with scarce further struggle."And something else."

The questioning raise of her eye-brows still reflected a royal elegance, despite her tear tracked face, and red-rimmed eyes.For all of her acute perception into the political escapades of Rome, the years of schooling her features to courtly detachment, what Quintus said next left her speechless for long moments, mulling over his words in stunnation while she considered their implications.Of all the things he might have asked, she never, in all her years, expected this.

And it was this for which he was coming to receive her answer this morning, waiting with as much composure as she could muster.

"My Lady," the Nubian girl announced from the insular beyond the porch's entrance."The Praetorian is here.He requests your audience."

_Do I have a choice_, she thought somewhat ruefully.

"Tell him he is welcome, Sekh-aten."

Quintus entered, attired in casual dress, wearing an unadorned, steel breastplate over a simple tunic, his baldric fastened around his waist, the short-sword at his side.He'd never possessed the contained energy of Maximus, the prowling manner that had leant the man who had once been her lover a restlessness only relieved by action—be it physical or mental.But Quintus still managed to carry himself with a remote dignity, his authority and rank unquestioned by the two guards as they exited the porch with a preemptory bow, leaving her alone with him in the delicately scented breeze of the Capri morning.

"My Lady," he said in solemn greeting.

She nodded, motioning for him to take the other seat across from her, pouring him a cup of the cooled, sweetened white wine from the villa's own vineyards which the servant girl had brought earlier.

He waited for her to say something with well-practiced patience, sipping from his own goblet.

Finally she spoke, taking a careful breath before beginning."I cannot promise you love, Quintus.My heart, I think, has been broken into too many pieces for that, can you understand?If I marry you, love will not be a part of this bargain."

He sipped once more, placing his wine cup down with a slow gesture, studying her with eyes the color of loamy earth.Eyes that were not unkind, and from their expression, showed he understood every syllable of what she said.

"I'm not asking for love, Lucilla.I might hope, one day, your heart will heal, but you have known great loss, and I will not be so foolish as to press for conjugal rights."

That last statement seemed to let her breath easier.He was doing her a favor she realized, and he noted the slight relaxation of her features, going on to say, "Regardless of how I feel about you, Lucilla, I am offering you this as a protection to yourself.I told you already, a good man, and his family, died because of me.I cannot let you wilt away here, too, your life slowly seeping with each passing day.You will still be watched, so long as Virius is apart of the Guard, but as my wife, he can do you no harm, and… you will be allowed off this island."

"I do not want to be back in Rome, Quintus," she said with an almost desperate shake of her head,thinking she could not bear to walk hallways and streets holding the memories they did."Someday perhaps, but not for now."

Once more he followed her thought."Not Rome, then.I have a villa—not an overly large place, but with its share of grape-fields, and a small acreage for wheat and grain…some sheep.It's on the Campagna.The place could be prosperous, but has lost profits these last years.The house staff is dependable, but lazy, the atmosphere soothing.Could that suffice for now?Until you wish to…return to the Capital."

The thought brought a small turn of her lips, though her soul scarcely felt the humor."I can't say I know much of running a household, Quintus."

The dignity with which he'd held himself dissipated slightly when he said with muted longing, "I realize it seems a step down in status from being the daughter of a Caesar, Lucilla, but it would give you—

"—It would keep me out of the way of Virius, and give some semblance of freedom.Isn't that what you mean to suggest, Quintus?"

He could only nod, trying to extinguish the hopeful light rising in his eyes wishing for her acceptance, an almost adolescent worship more typical of boys new to the passions of the heart.

She didn't have anything equaling that to offer him, saying bluntly, "It might serve as a distraction for a time, Quintus, but I fear it will offer little in the way of comfort from—."She broke off, inhaling sharply, unable to say the name of her son as yet.

"Work can sometimes be the solace the heart needs to mend, Lucilla.Especially if one is unfamiliar to it, it takes more concentration, offers more distraction from pain.And running a rural villa can be absorbing…you might find in time, even satisfying."

_I doubt that_, she thought, letting a beat of silence pass._Is this what I've become, then, all that is left to me now_?

It wasn't, she realized.Not quite.__

_ _

"I will see Virius answer for the death of my son, Quintus."The rising venom in her voice made Quintus sit-up a little straighter, alerted to her unspoken rage."Do not think I will spend the rest of my days spinning away at the cock and shuttle, weaving, and counting profits from your grapevines while I know _that_ man still lives."

Ever non-committal, he only replied, "Rome will be waiting for you when you are ready for it, Lucilla.Until then…well, that is what I leave for you to decide."

And decided she already had.A woman in a world ruled by men had few options when her protectors died—either her husband or her male relatives.While her father lived, she had been granted more freedom than most of her contemporaries because he'd learned to respect her keen intelligence, her political intuition, both in dealing with the Senate and her brother.Even Commodus, if one thing worked for her brother's favor, had possessed a healthy appreciation of his sister's talents—over-looking the fact of her gender in light of her abilities for ruler ship.

She had still been a pawn, though, in the game of great men and their bargaining loyalties, being forced to marry Verus with never a say as to her wishes.How could she complain, it was what noblewomen did, and she was to be wife of an emperor.It never occurred to Verus, taken in by her youth and beauty, she might possess more talent other than that conferred on her by nature—to be a wife and mother.

Maximus, though,Maximus had been different.With him, it had been easy for her, almost too much so. He had granted her a dual appreciation effortlessly, regarding her femininity as a gift for each of them to derive pleasure from, while sharing her thoughts, not threatened as most men were, by the agility of her mind.A rare thing, that, in any man, and she'd thrown it away—twice.Once in the name of ambition, in a time when her ideals had not been his.This last time, in the name of a stronger love.

They were all gone now:her father, her husband, her brother, and Maximus.Yet, here sat Quintus, offering her a way out once more.She remembered once, telling Maximus in the dark hours of a night long since past, after their enflamed love-making, one of her greatest fears was to grow old and rot, useless, staring at the same four walls of the same house for the rest of her years. 

She was rotting on Capri, grieving for her son, suffering Virius to come and toy with her because he knew she had no other alibis in her defense.Except for Quintus.

She would decay in mind and body just as rapidly sitting in Quintus' country villa, but he'd said himself, Rome stood waiting for her when she was ready.

_I think, Lady, you have an instinct for survival_.Maximus had spoken those words to her outside of her father's quarters in Vindabona in that time before Marcus Aurelius' death, saying them from the perspective of a broken heart that had never quite recovered, in spite of his own marriage, the obvious joy his wife and son had brought him.

Be that as it may, he'd always known her best, and she could deny it no longer.She did have a penchant for survival, and she had an even stronger motivation now:to see Virius brought down.

Quintus presented opportunity, and Quintus, being himself, given the adoration he'd so much as admitted to, knew better than to ask for anything other than her outward cooperation as his wife._Prudent_—the word fit him only too well.

"Yes, Quintus.I will marry you, but I will see our contract drawn up on the terms we have discussed."

The joy that lit his ordinary, pleasant face was almost too much for her to tolerate, and was thankfully quashed when he remembered this was not a decision motivated by a promise of marital bliss.

"On the terms we agreed to, then," he promised, standing.

"Yes, Quintus," she sighed, "on those terms."She allowed him to kiss her hand before taking his leave, wondering, as she watched his retreating form, the barely perceptible spring to his stride not present when he'd arrived, about the wisdom of her decision.

She knew, too, the look upon his face when he turned to bow in parting before exiting the porch.Again, that almost adolescent adoration, misplaced, somehow, in a man of his prime years.Not old, but hardly a star-struck boy.The expression of a man who felt, despite her honest warning of not being able to love him the way he did her, he might somehow re-inspire the heat of her feeling.With time, be able to reawaken the cinders of her heart.

She hoped he might continue to delude himself as the coming years crawled by without her responding to him beyond a casual regard.That, or he would finally grow frustrated with her, and seek his answering passion elsewhere. She did not think she would be able to see, everyday as the years passed, that look of unrequited love when he gazed at her.Realizing, little by little, she was unable to reciprocate—breaking his soul as the illusion of love was replaced by the cold reality of her opportunism.

The guards had come back onto the porch.She barely heeded them with a glance, staring out to where the aquatic sapphire of Mediterranean waters refracted the brilliant sun, finishing off the last dregs of her wine.Her mind turned to Maximus, hoping that his future loomed brighter than hers promised.


	2. Prelude to a Darker Hour

Nemhyn writes:

**_Nemhyn writes_**_:_

_When I am gone, and my bones are but dust and ash upon the cremation pyre, my children will tell a story that will be passed on the lips of men--a thing woven into song and ingrained in memory.I am certain it will be story of an Empire.Even more so, that it will be of an island. An island and her people--those who have lived there beyond time immemorable, and those who came to call Her home, despite being torn from the great Sea of Grass across which they once rode their proud steeds._

_I have never had my mother's gift for prophecy, but I know, in my heart, with that certainty some call mortal intuition, that there will be a time, perhaps many such times, when whole empires will have fallen, yet this island, Britannia, will stand as a last beacon of order, of hope, when the rest of the world has been cast into chaos.Britannia--an island, her people, and the struggle to preserve Her sanctuary, set in this place beyond the Continent, like a pebble cast to a deserted sea shore._

_ _

_A story of Britannia, then, of the women and men who served her, for there were--are--many such brave persons.And of one man in particular, who came to this island a lost and broken soul, who once served the Empire with pride and honor, only to be betrayed by that same essence of imperial power.A man who learned to find a place amongst the displaced, to build a home where he once believed none existed, and discovered that in serving Empire, one can rise above the small minded limitations of those who seek to rule Her, honoring, instead, the higher ideal--the dream of Roma Mater.The Dream, the Ideal, whose grandeur in conception is so broad, so vast in magnitude, that its full meaning will continue to elude the boundaries of mortal comprehension for generations yet to come. A dream, like that of Roma Mater, and her Idea...what she meant to Britannia and her peoples._

_ _

_A dream, slow to be recognized, that will take many more empires before She ever comes to complete fruition, but a very real one none-the-less.Very real because Her dream exists, like all dreams, either in the minds ofmen, or in their hearts.As my mother once said, though, it is the latter of these two wherein the Dream is realized--where it is not only borne, but lived._

_ _

_Thus, lying at the heart of this tale, this Dream, was a man, once a general, then a slave, and later, became a true leader of men in the defense of an isle.It matters not what name he was called, for it is the name Artos, Artorius, that will live on, to be spoken when even the ashes of my children's children will have long ago, been scattered to the four winds, and our lives will be but narratives upon the pages of some history. _

**Chapter One:Prelude to a Darker Hour**

**Mid-summer 182 CE**

They caught a barge at a river outlet not far beyond the defensive stone battlement shielding theport of Ruputiae: the trio of them, Nemyhn, Maeve, and Maximus--Lucius.While the barge floated with mellow monotony upon the dusky water of the river Tamesis, Maximus observed, in passing, a landscape of rich green, flat fields, gentle rolling slopes, pregnant with wheat and corn, ripening in the summer's fertility.The air was cool and moist, leaving an essence of damp on uncovered skin.In spite of the drizzle misting the banks of the river, obscuring, at times, the ex-gladiator's view, he saw enough to glean this was soft land, and productive.Acreage that still required tilling, the seeds to be sown and planted, the crops monitored for pests, yet was intended, one might have thought, by Nature herself, to yield up willingly, the products of seasonal labors.Herds of cattle, an occasional cottage, the hardy, newly sheered sheep providing a valuable wool, added variety to a countryside both pastoral and rural.

This land, Maximus realized, was distinctly British, but the mark of Roman presence was increasingly visible throughoutthe settlements appearing more frequently the nearer to Londinium they came.Rectangular houses with their stone and granite frames, whitewashed facades and tiled roofs, neighbored the neatly furrowed fields formed by workers driving oxen pulling iron-shod plows.Some of the homesteads still bore the rounded circumferences of the older, timber structures of the native inhabitants, but many of these dwellings, he noticed, were either deserted or being transformed into the more durable, permanent domiciles of the Roman occupants.

The women were quiet, subdued he might have thought, except Nemhyn occasionally grasped her mother's hand in a gesture of contained anticipation, to which her mother would smile, the lines around the now familiar ice-pale eyes crinkling like fine cheese cloth. 

Just short of dusk, they arrived to Londinium.The sun, peaking tentatively from behind the overcast, drab-gray clouds briefly lit the waters sludging by the docks to a sallowed, murky brown.Londinium:the provincial capital, a city barely over a century old.Her youth was apparent in her buildings, the blocks of limestone layered one regular row upon the next, sparkling like the day they had been first placed into the resplendent patterns of smooth, geometrical designs typical of Roman architecture.The pavement stones of her roads lay flat, the forum square a neat, bustling center of activity and commerce.Amongst a population as diverse as any other major city of the Empire, the trio and their donkey, wagon entow, headed for the governmental palace, housing the administrative offices, standing off on a slight rise from the street they now traversed, buzzing with the daily activity of urban dwellers.Numerous steps led up to the colonnaded entrance, over which a frieze of Jupiter, watching the actions of the city's populace day by day, stared down like a heierophant safeguarding the lives of the citizenry.The forum basilica was alive with merchants, magistrates, groups of armed soldiers moving through the crowd.A man shouting over the din of human cacophony was trying to get a cart of tanned leather through a line of women hauling baskets of fruit and linens ready for laundering..

Hercules was put into the care of a servant boy who, for a gold coin, agreed to take the donkey to the stables after initially refusing Maeve's request.A reaction most likely stimulated by their appearance as common folk, judging by the dubious light the boy still had in his eyes, even after he had the gold coin in hand.Before they left the donkey and wagon to the care of the servant and stable attendants, Nemhyn and Maeve collected their personal items--two polished wooden boxes he recognized as their physician's kits, and a small crate he'd volunteered to carry.A decision he was becoming regretful of by the time they'd climbed the last flight of stairs to the entrance, wondering what in all of names of the war god, two women traveling under the bare bones disguise of peasant folk, could possibly have transported that was so heavy. 

Coming to the entrance, Maeve turned to him, with an expression bordering on laughter."Next time, you might want to ask before offering a helping hand, Spaniard.Books are difficult things to transport safely over the distances we traveled, and very valuable besides.You should be able to leave them here for now, though," she indicated, before the immense bronzed double doors of the governmental palace's entrance."We'll get a servant to store them away safely, soon enough."

About to ask if that was not the function he was meant to be fulfilling Maeve, followed by her daughter, made to enter the palace just as a guard on duty approached them, exclaiming, "Ai there, woman!"The group turned, all three almost simultaneously, at the call, to face a humorlesslooking man with the stout features of the Cisalpine Italians."I'm not sure what the likes of you would want with anyone in the palace, but I assure you, unless you have a summons here, you are most likely in the wrong place to find a buyer for you fares."

"What?" was the first, confused word that came out of Maeve's mouth, her eyes flashing irritated perplexity before deciding to ignore the guard and make to step through the entrance once more.He caught her arm roughly, declaring, "I mean, that you ought to be in the forum market and not in the provincial compound, woman." 

The older woman only seemed nonplused, studying the man with a gaze the guard obviously found somewhat unnerving, and much too intent for a common woman.Her daughter had no such compunction of momentary speechlessness, expulsing a, "For the love of --," even as her mother moved to pull back her cowl, beginning to chuckle."Silucus," she began, imperious if not for her smirk, "I realize in the time of my absence, the number of gray hairs I've acquired is only matched by the number of wrinkles.Surely, though, I'm not that unrecognizable." 

Maximus, who for a few disturbing moments, had begun to seriously wonder if he'd played the fool after all, believing these women's story, following them all the way to this distant isle, saw the authoritative arrogance the guard had been evincingtransform to stunnation, then astonishment as recognition set in across his features, his hand dropping away from Maeve's arm. "M-my Lady…I …I had no idea…none of us did…that your…you--," he sputtered awkwardly.

"Peace, Silucus," his lady replied in good grace."Although I certainly hope when petitioners do seek the governmental offices, you are a bit more civil with them than you just demonstrated."

Kneeling now, before Maeve, trying to regain his composure behind a mask of professional dignity, without groveling for his error in hasty judgment, the guard, still somewhat tongue tied by his confusion, said,"And…and your daughter, Lady…"

To which Nemhyn pulled back the covering over her own head, her eyes glinting with amusement."Well and whole, Silucus."

Maeve motioned for the man to rise as he went on, assuming,now the duty of the welcoming ambassador."Your return is a gods sent gift, Ladies.Your loveliness and generosity have been missed upon these shores.Forgive me for my less than kind welcome, initially, but we had no word of either of you since Ephesus, and had no idea when you were to return…and," he paused, stumbling over his words once more, "you do not look like…uh, that is-- 

"We do not look like--," Maeve prodded with an aire of expectancy.

"…like ladies worthy of your rank," Silucus finished in lame hesitation, making Maximus snort dubiously bringing the guard's singular attention to him for the first time since their encounter. 

Nemhyn rolled her eyes as her mother laughed in easy regard of his comment, the older woman stating, "You haven't changed at all Silucus.It's reassuring to know you can still be depended upon to point out when my daughter and I have breached the strictures of dress appropriate to our rank." 

"Aye Lady," he responded absently."The gods be thanked for your return, both of you, but who is your companion," he nodded towards Maximus.

Maeve's answer was only, "No questions right now, Silicus.We have had a long time on the road, and would like a bath and fresh clothing…appropriate to our rank, " she quipped."The same for our guest," she motioned to Maximus, who followed as the group of them took Silucus' lead through the bronze doors into the entering corridor.

"And what status is he designated, Lady," asked Silucus, echoing Maximus's private thought.

Nemhyn's mother, walking just behind the guard, answered decisively, "Freeborn, Silucus.Freeborn and a mercenary."

The last words made Silucus glance back at Maximus with a wary caution:_Soldier for hire—dangerous_, his gaze seemed to proclaim.

The halls they traversed were marble-floored, lined with pillars of concrete and limestone, branching off into dim interiors lit by window slits from the roof, the flames of mounted oil lamps illuminating what natural light couldn't.They passed an insular courtyard, a small garden of flowers with roses and gentians, and a central fountain of Eros, atop a blossoming lily, surrounded by a convivial group of cherubs and nymphs, bubbling merrily in the silence.The group was no longer in the administrative portion of the building, but entered what Maximus recognized to be the rather sumptuously adorned house of the provincial governor.

Maeve rather than Silucus, now led the way to the bathhouse.The guard was careful to remain at her side, not questioning her prerogative, and began to recount the latest news of the Imperial capital.News that was old to ones who had been in Rome barely a scant two months ago. 

"A company of Belgians, Lady, not from the official post, mind you, but from men who had been stationed in the City themselves while their commander was summoned to the court of Commodus during this last winter, said the Guard was responsible for the death of Marcus Aurelius' son.Is it true, Lady," rambled Silucus, unaware of the irony behind who he was addressing

"Yes, quite," the older woman replied succinctly.

"And Pertinax now sits where the great ones have ruled?"

"Much to the mixed adulation of Britannia," Maeve again answered with more forbearance in her voice than she normally allowed.

Maximus saw Nemhyn, from where she followed, stare hard at her mother's back, pressing her lips together at Maeve's words.He could guess at how much adulation the older woman's daughter obviously exuded by that simple expression.He recalled the conversation he shared with her in glen outside of Ravenna, when thoughts of coming to the isle had been a rankling impossibility to his mind.

The baths they arrived at were attached to the northeast corner of the house, set into an annex shaded with large oak trees.Juniper bushes hemmed the entrance, offering a pleasant arboreal atmosphere.

Silucus looked as though he were about to plague Maeve with another inquiry, but she cut him off, saying, "Enough of Rome, Silucus.I wish to know, rather, why my husband is here in the capital and not in Eboracum with the rest of the Victrix."

The sharp look Nemhyn threw her mother was echoed by the guard's astonishment as he stuttered once more, "How…how, Lady, did you …I mean, he only arrived this morning—."He broke off as he saw a wry consideration pass over Maeve's cleanly lined features.

"In nearly three years you haven't forgotten _that_ as well, have you Silucus?"

The guard's response was lost to the ex-gladiator who, in containing his own sudden stunnation, was left with the words, _nearly three years_, ringing in his ears like the reverberations of the arena's mob.

_ _

Noble women, indeed.Noblewomen did not remain in absence from their homeland, traveling as peasants, for nearly three years.There was an explanation here, he intended to seek, but now was hardly the time to ask for it, banking on the notion that details of their journey and the reasons behind it might be elucidated later, without his having to inquire.

Silucus mentioned something, apologizing, perhaps, for not knowing enough of what had brought her husband to the capital. 

"That is fine, Silucus.As usual, you are attentive to your duty, and are to be commended.Please escort our esteemed Lucius to the men's baths and my daughter and I will seek our own way," Maeve ordered.

The guard, looking at Maximus, made no comment as the women went off to an entrance opposite what must have been the men's bathing area.It was plain, though, that Silucus was reluctant to have a strange man heralded a mercenary following him, no matter if the distance was but a stride or two away, and a turn of a corner. 

"Rest easy, Silucus.I have no weapons upon me, and the likes of Maeve and her daughter trusted me over the distances from Rome.Surely that short stretch to the changing roomcan't be so hard for you to escort me to, " Maximus said, pointing to an ornately carved door frame of water nereids and satyrs just beyond the guard, trying to keep the derisive impatience out of his voice.

"Mercenaries have a reputation for not always adhering to the laws of hospitality," the cautious guard returned, obviously uneasy, though not bullying or trying to intimidate through false bravado.

"I can assure you," Maximus replied, "_this_ mercenary has no wish to subvert the laws of hospitality by slaying those who serve the Lady or her daughter."

The guards half-grin showed he could appreciate the rueful aspect of the ex-gladiator's comment, despite his wary pretense."My job is to see you stand by that promise, friend."

"Then I'm hardly the one to hinder you in your duties…friend," Maximus rejoined, baring his teeth in a brief, sneering smile.

Silence ensued for a moment where the two men seemed to measure each other with cautious respect.Silucus, breaking the confrontation, finally motioned, turning around, "Follow me…the baths lie this way."

Which Maximus did, giving the still edgy guard his breadth, as he was led to the changing rooms, noticing with an inward, half-contemptuous sigh, Silucus still kept a hand on the hilt of his short-sword through the interlude of their contact.

He'd always bathed as any red-blooded Roman did, with olive oil and strigel.Until the years he'd been stationed on the Germanic front, discovering the wondrous invention of soap.In spite of the Roman propaganda painting the Germanic tribes as filthy, uncleanly barbarians,the fact was they were as addicted to bodily hygiene as any native Latin.They inhabited areas too cold to raise and harvest the gift of the warmer Mediterranean slopes, however, devising in place of olive oil, a method of boiling animal fat and mixing it with plants possessing a curious property of suddzing.Maximus found the preparation of animal fat, saponine herbs, and sometimes lye, left the skin and hair feeling more thoroughly cleansed than simply washing with water and olive oil. Here in the provincial governor's bath house in this far corner of the Empire, where both means of washing up were offered, Maximus utilized the method he'd grown fond of since serving along the northern fronts of the Continent all those years ago. 

He was clothed, now, in a new tunic that came to just below his knees, generously donated from where he hadn't the slightest.It had simply been folded by a dutiful bath attendant, and waiting for him after he'd toweled off.The smooth linen, dyed a rich green, felt foreign to skin accustomed to the rougher, untreated wool of commoners and slaves.

Even his tethered sandals had been replaced by boots made with tough leather and laced to mid-calf with sinew.He might have been any well-to-do citizen moving about his business within the borders of the Empire.It was the way he had once dressed as the son of a provincial magistrate, or as a ranked officer off-duty.Beard trimmed, clean shaven where facial hair wasn't desired, not richly, but neatly attired, donning a light calf-length cloak as well (a necessity given the coolness of the Britannia's summer evening) he strolled in the reception room, catching a glimpse of himself in a mounted mirror of flattened silver.

It had been years since he'd cared to look at his reflection, and what he saw, somewhat to his surprise, was a man not overly changed in outward appearance in the two, nearly three seasons since the tragic upheaval of his past.His features were perhaps, more grim, hardened, but that had happened a long time ago, as he grew accustomed to the responsibilities deciding the fates of men under his command.The gravity behind his eyes, though, was more recent, the solemness of expression belied an aloof detachment, a tension that had not been there before his term of slavery, guarding a perpetual need to hide genuine feeling.An impression at odds with the faint lines barely perceptible around his eyes, formed during a time when laughter had not been so rare in occurrence.

With a slight grimace, he turned away from the mirror to study what the dancing light afforded from oil lanterns hanging on either side of the intricately carved looking-glass.Colorful frescoes of an infant Herakles killing twin-serpents with one hand, the mosaics of the other walls portraying Europa borne upon the waves by a decidedly lustful looking bull, that was of course, Jupiter.Artistic embellishments common to any dwelling of an imperial official.

The reception hall was but one room, set towards the front of the house, sheltered, as were the other ante-rooms looking out onto the large, central courtyard, by an over-hanging peristyle.Columns of polished limestone supported the clay-tiled roof on all sides of the rectangular open-air gallery, through which the calm breezes of imminent evening carried the scent of baking bread and roasting meat.The kitchen staff must have been in the process of preparing the night's meal.

He hadn't eaten anything since before departing the ship at Ruputiae that morning, and the thought of food made him aware of how famished he suddenly felt.Lost in his meandering thoughts, wondering what had become of the women, a subtle essence of movement from behind,caught by the clarity of the mirror, but veiled in the encompassing room's dimness, made him swing around with the neat efficiency of practiced reflex.The source of the movement stepped forward, closer to the light of the lamps, illuminating the face and form of a man, somewhat in his later middle-age, robust in appearance, and tall of stature.

While not fully armored, nor even armed, he still wore the steel breast-plate with the insignia of the Eagle, spanning the width of the pectoral etchings--symbolic homage to Rome.The gold inlay of two stags, rearing towards one another in battle, their horns carved with bronze tipped tines spoke, however, of a different, and older heritage.Words rang through his head of Nemhyn, on that night outside of Genova, telling how her father's family traced their lines from the Celto-Gallic nobility.Maximus' father had been of the landed gentry, harkening back to some of the purest Latin blood, but his mother had been of the Iberian stock, Romanized for generations, but at night, when he was barely old enough to ride his first pony, she would sing him to sleep, with tales of her people, and a time, lost to the mythical past.Of a people seeking a new land beyond the edge of the sea, risking their lives to boats built of Phoenician craft, and sailingto a land now known as Hibernia. The ex-gladiator well understood the symbolism of the stags.In those tales, a stag was often hunted--Cerunnos, beast of the forest, emblem of Celtic kings, defenders of sovereignty when they joined with the Lady of the Land--mother of Her children.Beyond the baldric bearing numerous leather strips containing the polished bronze medallions speaking to war-time accomplishments, hanging to just above the other man's knees, the heavy maroon, floor-length cape of finely woven fabric, and the arresting authority in the man's eyes, Maximus needed no other tell-tale marks of military prestige to guess at the identity of the newcomer.

Even as he made to kneel, uttering a respectful, and belated, "My Lord, the evening finds you well, I hope.I did not mean to--," Antius Cresecens, shaking his head with humorous indulgence, waved his hand emphatically for the younger man to rise.

Deep and rumbling, the general's voice was tempered with an openness and enthusiasm rare to one of esteemed privilege."Up, up.I tried to tell Clodius, now that he's been appointed governor by our new Emperor, the first improvement he could make with his authority, one that would make life simpler for all those concerned, which is a good many people, you see--this house, particularly this room, is used to welcome quite a number of guests—would be to add more lamps.It would greatly enhance visibility in the evening, and lessen the alarm that always crosses people's faces when their host approaches them through shadows that probably rival Hades in their gloom."

Maximus, doing only what he was told, rose to stand during the other man's diatribe, listening to an accent that was indeed from Gaul.In no other part of the Empire did people swallow the rolling r's of the Latin language like inhabitants of Gaul, though Antius's speech was still refined and fluent.

Something about the man's broad-featured face, eyes darker than the rich soil of a river bank, lenta youthful unbiasedness, in spite of the cropped hair a mottled silver-gray, surrounding the bald peak of his head like the branches of a laurel-crown.His beard, the same color as the remnants of his hair, was longer than Maximus's own closely trimmed facial hair, neatly kempt, making Antius seem seasoned rather than aged.

Maximus remarked with a quick grin, an unconscious response to the older man's effortless vigor, "You could always get rid of the mirror since it seems to be what causes your guests' distraction."

Studying the object in question, Antius nodded, rubbing his chin, displaying far too much concentration to be taken seriously."A legitimate thought.But then one has to take into account the exemplary craftsmanship," the older man explained, pointing out the gold-edging resembling braided hemp painted in molten sunlight."I believe this piece was done here on the island, by a smithy known for his ability to refine silver with outstanding lucidity.A gifted man, truly.Not a Briton, however…he's from somewhere in the east—Asia Minor, perhaps Egypt."

Maximus wasn't quite understanding why the older man felt obligated to explain the ethnic origins of a smithy who he would probably never meet in person, but he listened patiently, letting the general continue.

"He said there were too many others like him in his native land.Too much competition, not enough buyers of his fare, so he decided to come here after seeing some Celtic metal-work exhibited by a jewelry peddler traveling through his homeland years ago.You wouldn't think it, would you," Antius continued musingly, "a territory in the northern hinterland of Imperial influence, and you find a smithy from the East who came here simply seeking a fresh start, and better prospects.Britannia attracts a lot of those you know," he finished, looking at Maximus, gadging him for a visible reaction.

_That's it then_, the younger man thought, exhaling once, with loud emphasis.He realized Antius' comment had been geared, in part, at himself.He wasn't, however, going to impart details of his reinvented past just yet 

The casual levity of the general dropped away, replaced by a still somberness as he addressed Maximus. "Young man, I know you came here with my wife and daughter for reasons that I'm hoping will be elucidated further this evening.Reasons, whatever they might be, I am almost positive my wife played a role in influencing, and I know especially that my wife can be somewhat more…compelling than she intends."

Again, Maximus could only sniff in a sardonic fashion, as Antius, cocking an eyebrow his way, observed, "Right.You've heard the story of how our marriage came about , haven't you."

"One version anyway, " the younger man answered.

Antius laughed openly at that, saying, "Ah, Nemhyn.My daughter always was partial to that tale, and tells it with more drama every time."His brief exuberance at mention of his daughter transmuted once more to solemnity."Know this young man, in all of the years I have commanded soldiers, I have learned to recognize the look of one who has lost trust and faith in their life."

The feeling of being cornered, maneuvered in a way he didn't want to be, was beginning to put Maximus on edge.The older man must have seen the gradual apprehension cross his facade, for Antius' next words were unexpected, leaving him at an utter loss for a response.

"What I'm trying to tell you, young man, is that no matter the motivation driving you to these shores, you are not obligated to share anything further than what you feel you can.But the more you tell me, judged by your own discretion of course, the better I may be able to assist you in what you need."

Maximus found himself beginning to shake his head in negation to the necessity for any such assistance, mumbling disconcertedly, "I thank you sir, but there is no debt you ought to feel committed to on my account."Unsure of how much he should reveal of the story he an Maeve had concocted after leaving Trujillo, he only added, "Your wife offered a temporary direction for me at a time when I was…at a lack of opportunities.We had the understanding my service to her was only to last until we arrived safely in Britannia.Beyond that, there was no more to our arrangement."

The skepticism in Antius' look told the ex-gladiator the older man wasn't entirely convinced."For their safe return, I ought to be indebted to you for the rest of my years, young man.And whatever you might have done in your past, whoever you might be, I follow Maeve's judgment in such matters as a blind man follows those who act as his eyes."He paused before commenting off-handedly, with a conspiring grin, "Despite the fact she can be something of the odd, eccentric, and untraditional, no?"

Descriptors to which Maximus merely gave the older man a skewed look, in complete agreement, but deciding it bad taste to comment as such.He had no wish to offend when there was no seeming cause.

To Maximus' relief, further pursuit concerning his reasons for coming to the isle was dropped temporarily as Antius commented, casual once more, "One has to wonder what takes women so long to ready their appearance, and always at times when you're most famished and meant to be entertaining a guest.I don't know about you…," the older man trailed off with an expectant nod, allowing Maximus a chance to offer his name.

"Ma—my name is Lucius.Lucius Castus," the younger man revealed, giving himself an inward kick at his near slip.

"--Lucius, then," Antius repeated."I don't know about you, Lucius, but I find women, gifts of the gods as they are, can sometimes be---," and broke off promptly, the general rendered speechless as his expression changed from one of animated converse to a melting of unreserved affection.

Maximus turned at the rustle of cloth, a soft step, and a woman's soft, scolding tutter.Sounds that belied the reason for Antius--a personage of status, bearing the prestige of a ranked, senior officer of the Roman legions--all at once assuming the unguarded look of a man restored to someone he'd once held dear, having long been without their presence. 

_ _

"Women are what, Antius.What horrid secrets are you sharing about me that it delays our dinner for the rest of the evening.Not only are you starving the man who safe-guarded our passage from Rome, but your daughter, who is left to ward a repast neither of us have seen the elegance of for over two years, is sorely tempted to tear into the food whether we're all together or not."

"Not—not delaying," Antius murmured brokenly."We had no idea you and Nemhyn--," andbroke off, muttering an, "Oh bloody hell," in futility, choosing instead to cross the distance to the reception hall's entrance, and swing his wife into his arms, embracing her thoroughly with a soundkissing, causing the staid seeress of Maximus' acquaintance to laugh with uninhibited delight like a young girl.

"By gods woman," the general went on, still holding his wife, not making any effort to contain his pleasure at her return."You have grown more lovely in the years of your traveling, while I grow old and haggard upon this island, under the supposed privilege of leading a legion of the Empire."

She laughed again, her exuberance, as was her appearance, so at odds with the woman Maximus had interacted with on the road--the healer, the seeress, dressed as a peasant.Now she was all Roman matron, attired in finery which would have made Silucus proud had been asked to comment, her silken dress the color of spring violets, swathed under breasts and around her waste as fashion dictated, the chestnut strands of her hair, shot through with silver, swept up into a golden diadem, neatly pulled back off her face.In the dimness of the mounted lantern flames, the evidence of her age was softened, blurred.Still lovely at five and fifty, her smile, the girlish delight she exuded just now made her seem more the age of her daughter, the ice-pale eyes piercing, studying her husband with a momentary heat that Maximus felt he ought not be witness to, before she suddenly seemed to remember, as did her husband, his presence.

In spite of her transformation in appearance, Maeve's incisive, "Well, dearest, now that I've returned, we can have the comfort of watching each other wrinkle and grow fat together," to her husbands compliment was more typical of the woman the ex-gladiator had grown to know over the last couple months of their acquaintance."Besides," she continued, breaking away from her husband with seeming reluctance, turning to face Maximus, "you're making our poor Lucius here, unwilling witness to your display, rather self-conscious, I fear."

Antius may have allowed his wife to break their embrace, but he refused to drop her hand, humoring Maximus with a, "Can you forgive a love-starved man a momentary lapse in his emotional excess.I have been denied the presence of my wife a long-time, and have yet to re-aquaint myself with a daughter long in absence."

It was an effort to hide the sudden, stabbing memory of his own wife, to try and appear as casual as possible, unbothered by the reunion of Antius and Maeve.Thickly, he could only manage, "It's the least prerogative a husband or a father ought to enjoy, and be thankful for everyday of his life."_While you still have them_, he finished silently.

The pain wasn't lingering, as it once had been, but when it came, it came acutely, this sudden need to take his own wife and son in his arms, and never release them.

Antius' laugh, his boisterous, "You see my dearest, our young guest seems to understand perfectly," moved them past the moment.Maximus attempted a half-grin, which was not entirely forced.He wouldn't begrudge another man his own family, though he was denied his own, especially a man as good-natured as Antius gave the impression of being.Resentment of other's good fortune had never been a part of his character and it certainly wouldn't begin to be now.

Maeve, watching the ex-gladiator intently, smiled once more at her husband, telling him to go on ahead, and let, "our esteemed Lucius escort your wife to dinner.Your daughter is as hungry for the site of you as you are of her."

Antius made no complaint, kissing his wife's hand, exiting the reception room out ahead of them.Maeve, enacting the part of the gracious hostess with ease, offered her arm to Maximus—Lucius. 

The look in her eyes was not pity, but understanding—the look once more, of the seeress.Maeve, like her daughter, who doubtless had inherited the quality from the older woman, was not one to confuse empathy with false sympathy.As they walked to the dining hall, arm in arm, following the eager stride of her husband, she spoke in a quiet undertone to Maximus."They will be waiting for you.Do not doubt that, but you must realize, Maximus, _that_ life is done."

Where once he would have spoken against her in bitter denial, he now said with a sort of distant despondency, "I know, but the dead don't ever completely leave you."

"She wouldn't want to hold you back either…_Lucius_," the older woman stated, speaking his newly chosen name with purposeful emphasis.They passed through a long, lavishly appointed corridor with of pink whorled marble floors and open colonnades offering a view of the surrounding peristyle across the insular garden."After all, roads here don't lead to Rome."

His arm still linked with hers, strolling with unhurried leisure, he stopped for a moment, taking in the opulent purples and reds of a fresco illumed by mounted torches depicting a goddess riding upon the back of a gallant stallion, astride as a man would do.Certainly not a goddess from any classical pantheon, with her hair streaming out behind her in wild, windswept locks, and tatters of cloth barely covering her white limbs. "No, your daughter said it herself.Here, all roads lead to Londinium."

"Which is far from Rome," Maeve remarked, picking up their pace again.

His response was mingled with half amused cough of skepticism."Do you think that will be far enough for me?"

Maeve simply arched a graceful eyebrow his way.The look said enough: _That remains for you to decide._

The dining hall, the _triclinium_ in Latin, was a stylishly appointed room, large and oval in shape.Sculptures of various gods and goddesses in their established poses, cut of the rare and expensive Egyptian black marble, glinting in torch light like the sea at night, adorned individual enclaves set into the granite walls about the room:Minerva with her spear, draped as a Roman Augusta; Jupiter wielding thunder and lightning; Hera embracing in her arms the white roses of fidelity and marriage, the tinders of the home fire; Diana dancing before her brother, the Greek Apollo, in his hall of the eternal sun, and many others worshipped throughout the vast distances of the Empire, brought to this distant island of mist.Dining couches, their stiff velvet pillow cushions reflecting the lack of usage which seemed to define all the structures of the provincial capital, were placed in the middle of the room, three aboutlike an open-sided square so that the servants could remove the food and drink with ease fromthe table at the couches' center.Maximus looked around in nonchalant interest, not impressed so much by the luxuries of the governmental quarters--houses of imperial officials from one end in Syria to Germania Minor were relatively standard constructions—as by the implications of what this house's design reflected:mundanities of Roman domesticity, brought to Britannia's far shore, an island at the northern-most end of the western Empire.

Maximus, still guiding Maeve, arm in arm, followed Antius, who barely seemed able to restrain himself from bounding across the floor, beyond an elaborately laid out feast, to the figure of a tall, slender woman, her hair the color of firelight shining through honey, standing at the far end of the room.She was examining a mosaic of Achilles battling Hector in a detail of bloodied, ancient glory—Jupiter from his heights on Olympus weighting the Scales of Fortune deciding the fate of warriors, victor and vanquished, looking upon Hector with sad, reluctant eyes.

Antius, it turned out, need not have spared his dignity, for at the sound of his booted step on the marble floors, the woman turned, pure joy suffusing her features as she nearly bowled him over, flying into his arms, apparently disdaining to act with the restrained control normally expected of a general's daughter.The diaphanous ivory-white material of her floor-length dress, finer than anything Maximus had seen Nemhyn wear while on the road, flared out behind her.

Her father caught her up in a great bear hug, kissing her on one cheek and the other, laughing warmly and deep, saying, "It is a relief to find the food is still here.I was expecting to see the meal already vanished in your ravenous hunger, judging from how your mother made you sound half starved, warning you would begin dining without the rest of us."

Antius set his daughter back on her feet, and Nemhyn, trying to hide her openly obvious joy behind a serious regard, failing at the attempt, said without any real reproach, "Can you blame me, I was sick for a good part of the sea voyage and could barely keep down even a little water and bread.Having to look at this marvelous banquet as it grew cold, and contain my appetite while you and …Lucius took your time arriving ," she motioned toward the food on the table, "was really quite a trial of my willpower."

The words, spoken in mock sulleness, ending in a merry giggle, had her father laughing along. "Ah, daughter, I've missed your bluntess as I have your mother's penetrating explications of the world and how it ought to be.And proud, I am, of the fact that like your mother, you have grown in loveliness within these missing years."

Maeve and Nemhyn exchanged a look of familiar exasperation, as the older woman commented discursively to Maximus--a wife with the long standing knowledge of her husband's effusive flatteries--,"Antius has always believed compliments beget forgiveness when he knows he's in the wrong with the women of his family."

To which Antius retorted in feigned defense, "That's because, dearest, it usually works.A wise man knows, not only when to keep silence concerning certain matters of his women-folk, but also when he must speak words to soothe their, hmmm," making as if to choose his next word carefully, "fragile sensitivities.So in your quest to rouse our honored Lucius' sympathies by telling him what an ogre of a husband and father I am, remember, he is the only other man in this fair company tonight, and my only ally by default of his gender."

Words, well chosen, had Maximus breaking into a chuckle as Nemhyn too, began to laugh, while Maeve gave her husband a look of challenge and delight.It was obvious there was no serious intent meant behind any of the remarks--that this family reveled in the word play, drawing affectionate pleasure from such exchanges.An affection combined with an open tenderness reaching out and inviting Maximus to partake in the merry atmosphere enveloping the newly reacquainted family, as though he were an age old friend, and not a semi-fugitive slave, eluding the selfish eyes of Rome, and her jealous rulers. 

Nemhyn, with an _ahem_, and a hint of mirth, said, "Your compliments are always valued, father, and while I hate to interrupt the rest of what you might say in your effort to redeem yourself with you wife and daughter, not to mention, maintain your supposed alliance with our esteemed Lucius, there is an extremely delectable looking dish of shellfish in wine-sauce that is growing cold even as we speak.Shall we eat?"

Antius, not having much choice in the matter, succumbed willingly to his daughter's lead as she grabbed his arm and practically dragged him over to the couches. Maeve, offering Maximus her arm once more, which he took with a slight smile and an inclination of his head honoring her as the hostess, lead with a more staid dignity.

A dignity he was hard pressed to hold to as they arranged themselves around the table of food.Maximus hadn't realized how long he had been in absence of such finery, trying to maintain his composure and not gape at the spread before him--the assortment of cooked meats, fresh fruits and sweets, at the fine silver of the table-wear, nor the luster of the wine-goblets with their intricate carvings of wild flowers and grapes.He suddenly felt like some ruffian-beggar who had mistakenly wandered in upon a feast of the High Ones.

If either of the women, or the general, noticed the momentary amazement that had overcome his features before he could regain his self possession, they were tactful enough to not comment.

Maeve, seated next to her husband, leaving one couch for Nemhyn, and the other to Maximus, signaled for an unobtrusive servant boy with the fey, dark features of Eastern breeding to bring out a pitcher of wine.In between serving up the shellfish for each member of the small company, she asked offhandedly to her husband, "Is Clodius not joining us tonight, dearest?"

The question, phrased innocently, with no hint of the probing seeress, caused the broad, good-natured features of her husband to cloud over like a clear sky in the wake of a thunderstorm, the effusive joy of the small dinner party suddenly evaporating in the wake of his darkened expression.

Maeve set her daughter's bowl down, waited for the servant boy to fill Maximus' cup, then settled back on the couch next to her husband.Her daughter scooted forward from her own place, separate that of her parents, in order to better hear what they said.

With all of the serene reserve he'd grown accustomed to in the last months of their contact, the warm façade of the Roman matron was replaced by that of the prophetess.Ice-pale eyes keen, Maeve uttered a simple, "What has happened?"

"Clodius is still in the north, overseeing the re-garrisoning of some forts south of the Antonine front.The Caledonii broke through and completely razed the lands of the Selgoviae and Dummondii before Cumerex could dispatch some Votadini troops to halt their progress.It took two days for the news to reach Eboracum, and another four to get the adequate number of forces together.By the time we arrived, Habitonacum and Bremenium were little more than ashes and charred coals, the Votadini crops a waste, and their cattle a slaughtered mass of rawhide.You don't want to know what became of their soldiers, nor--gods' curse every one of those barbarian insurgents," Antius finished bitterly, "--the fate of the surrounding villages."

Maeve was pale, still, could only say, "They haven't forgotten Mons Graupius.The Celtic tribes have always had long memories, but they say those north of Hadrian's Wall have the longest."

Maximus recalled the deep-felt urgency, the imminent threat of invasion when the defenses of Germania too had been breached, the Macromanni beatng at the door of the Empire, a vast horde of barbarians streaming down to Vindabona.Against his better judgment, not knowing what impulse urged him to speak up, if it was indeed his military instincts from days long left to a different life, or an innate sense of morbid curiosity, he said, "You make it sound like a great many men were lost, yet this invasion seems as though it should have offered no morethreat to Roman held lands than any other tribal foray.Are there not defenses along the Wall of Hadrian that should have been able to supply the men required, preventing the need of sending messengers all the way to Eboracum, while further incursion resulted in damage to the Votadini lands?"

Nemhyn frowned at him, about to speak up, but her father answered before she could say anything.Which was probably for the better as her responses to his questions sometimes reflected a stinging impatience which only served to chafe at his own composure.

"Not so long ago, that might have true, young man.But the troops that were once stationed prolifically along our vast Empire's northern-most border have thinned in recent years, some lost in the regular lines of duty, but a better number have merely been called away, sent to serve elsewhere, particularly in the endeavors commanded by claimants of the Imperial throne.Pertinax recruited an entire legion's worth from the companies of the Island, and during the years of Commodus' reign, other cohorts were sent to the Queen of Cities Herself to reinforce the urban patrols in quelling the infamous mob."With a measuring gaze that made Maximus want to fidget, Antius studied the younger man for a beat.Then, nodding to himself, seeming to have confirmed an answer to an unvoiced question, he concluded darkly, "The Wall is a magnificent piece of defensive construct, but is totally useless without the military strength to man it.Enough so that we lost three entire cohorts: the _Cohors IV Gallorum equitata_, the _Cohors I Aelia Dacorum milliaria_, and the _Cohors I Lingonum_ _equitata_, along with another thousand from the VI Victrix.Further losses were circumvented only because my son, gods forever bless his bravery and timeliness, Cassius, sent reinforcements from the _Classis Britannica_ that marched non-stop over two days of mountainous terrain and muddied bogs to reach us."

By the time the older man finished his explanation, Maximus was beginning to sincerely regretbroaching the subjectHe heard Maeve sigh heavily upon mention of her son, the numbers lost in battle.Her daughter's response, a stiff look dread falling across finely chiseled features, though less demonstrative, was equally expressive in its apprehension.

A curious remorse came over the general as he looked at Maximus dismally, "You have come to these shores at a dark time, young man. So long as Rome sent the defenses adequate to keep vigil along the Wall of Hadrian, a relative peace was maintained, even with those tribes across the border.You are not alone in thinking this is simply another isolated tribal foray. Her populace, the civil magistrates, even the officers I have been in council with today, wish to believe that, so they will, once again, downplay the seriousness of this incident when debriefing Rome on its occurrence.We are weakened though, and I fear the Tribes want blood this time, they want land they never truly stopped claiming as their own, and now they are beginning to test the strength of our defensives, and seeing them depleted, they are willing to go to war for that land."

For some odd reason, Maximus felt as though he'd been chastised, though he knew Antius hadn't meant his words as any other than a simple explanation, albeit a dire one. A look of discomfort must have fallen over his visage, for the general, still watching Maximus, suddenly waved his hand in a dismissive manner, stating promptly, "But these events have long been unfolding, and brooding further on them tonight will not solve them. Let us not sour our mood more, but restore our appetites with good food, and the company of my beautiful wife and equally lovely daughter, young Lucius."Turning to Maeve, deliberately trying to recover a jovial ambiance, he said, "Come wife, how did you and my daughter find the East?And Rome?How fares my brother?"

Privately, Maximus didn't think news of Rome any more appetite inducing than talk of barbarian raids, but he said nothing as he found the delectable shellfish sufficient in returning his hunger.Apparently, with the alacrity the women dug into their own servings, they were in unspoken accordance.Maeve, once more transforming into the gracious hostess, said, in an echo of Maximus's thought, that she would begin with the tale of their travel, as it was far better entertainment than any news out of Rome.

Thus, through the course of shellfish, followed by olives in fish-vinegar sauce, topped with a round of well-watered wine--a commonality in any high-ranking household during dinner--the women's eager voices detailed a portrayal of a land encountered by Alexander the Great over four hundred years before.A place of suffocating humidity, air like the steam filled furnaces of a bath-house, where the afternoon rains left a lingering dampness like a wet blanket. Tales of a dark skinned people inhabiting a varied topography of lush rainforests and alpine slopes, who sought enlightenment following the codes of behavior set down by a man five hundred years dead, whose name was as inconceivable as the fantastic descriptions of black-tiger like creatures known as panthers, or behemoth monstrosities called rhinos, seemed incongruous to this setting on the Isle of Mists beyond the Northern Sea.An island of barren sea-swept cliffs, cloud veiled heights, remote flatlands and forest glens. 

Had Maximus been less well-traveled himself, he would have had difficulty believing the stories Nemhyn was describing of scholars who studied a form of learning known as Vedic wisdom while the small group consumed a large cut of roast venison, stuffed with mushrooms, moistened with juices released during its cooking."The Vedas. One of the Hellenic teachers we studied with said the word means the _Wisdom _or_ Science of Life_ in the Greek," and she proceeded to tell of the brilliance of their surgeons, able to repair the damaged cartilage of severed ears and noses.

"And," Maeve added, supplementing her daughter's commentary, " they possess an ingenious method of preventing the pox by taking the scabs from healing pustules of those already infected and placing them in the nostrils of healthy persons so they are never afflicted with the illness no matter how often they come in contact with the sick."

"I do hope Aristophanes is still in Corpistitium," Nemhyn stated."We have a book detailing the works of one of their great physicians--Sushrata, but there was no translation to the Greek or Latin, and Aristophanes, I seem to remember him saying, studied the writing of the Vedics when he was in Egypt."

"If nothing else, he will welcome the new influx of literary materials," her father said.

"I certainly hope so," Maeve remarked."We bought three copies of Dioscorides _De Materia_ _Medica_ when we were in Alexandria, two in Latin, and one in Greek, picked up a work by Erastistratus and a scroll on dissection by Marinus.That should help to flesh out the collection at Corbridge until I can persuade Eumendos to invest some funds for more scrolls and books."

Nemhyn, with a rather derisive glance, said, "Goddess bless you in that endeavor, Mother.You'll have to do some fairly heavy arguing to make him see it's worth the funds to update his collection every few years.He'll start by complaining how strapped the military treasury is for money, and proceed to state all the repairs that have to go into the granaries, the walls, the baths, and so on."

"Although," Antius supplied helpfully, "if you ask Eumendos' procurator, I'm almost positive you'll find his ale-stores are as healthy as ever, and judging by the review of the budgets this month past, he's spending more on the mead they bring down from the north country this year than the last two.He ships it overseas, and has been making quite a profit on it."

"Then I'll have to justify diverting some of his new-found earnings towards a few orders for more books with the merchant vessels that come though Arbeia before he finds some freshly creative way to spend what profits he has on--how does he always put it--_keeping up the morale of the men_," Maeve considered."At least by next spring."

Antius was looking on his wife and daughter with an undisguised admiration, stating teasingly,"You know, Irias was convinced two women traveling as you were, across the distances you would cover, and encountering the peoples you would, would either be tempted into infidelity by the luxuries of the East, or be captured and shipped to the countries of the jade cities.It's really going to be a horrid disappointment when I tell him he lost his wager, and the only thing you came back with were books and a few stories of your travels."

Maximus, looking to Nemhyn, asked in amusement,"There was a wager made on the success of your journey?"

With poorly disguised acerbity, Nemhyn clarified, "Irias is one of father's most trusted advisors.But he interprets the words of Juvenal as though they were the very sayings of the Sybil, and is utterly convinced that mother and I break every code of modest behavior appropriate to Roman women."

"And our apparent immodesty," Maeve continued, "Irias believes, is due to Celtic blood, which of course begets licentious mannerisms in the Island's women."Her smile was one tempered with a slight irony as she looked to her husband, "So husband, you won the wager after all.Next time you see Irias, tell him your daughter didn't run off with a charioteer from Ephesus, and your wife didn't bed a whole crew of bricklayers in Antioch.I believe those were his words three years ago before we left, no?"

Maximus found himself chuckling when Nemhyn added, "And we all know there's simply nothing more attractive to a man who would ask to lie with either me or mother than the brigade of fleas that infested every sleeping mat we ever napped on, nor puts you in a better mood for desiring a lover's touch than basking in the oven-heat of the East."

Rather than react with scandalized horror to his daughter's somewhat ribald comment, Antius only chuckled, becoming a full-throated laugh when his wife, in an imitation of momentous thought, stipulated, "Although, there was the tempting offer of ten camels in return for our daughter while we were in Damascus housing with a gynecologist.He was already married of course, but declared it was not an uncommon thing for men to have more than one wife, all the better if she was versed in the healer's art."

"You do make the most interesting associations through your practice, Wife," Antius remarked through his laughter, evincing none of the offended sensitivity Maximus might have expected of a man who fulfilled, by every other appearance, the mien of an honorable Roman general--_pater_ _familias_ to his women."Irias also never misses the opportunity to warn me of the pervertinginfluence you have had on our daughter in seeing her educated in the manner of classical medical texts, nor in the social contacts you each have made through the years of practice.Has your instruction been so corrupting to our daughter, do you think?Is she beyond all hope of reform?"

His daughter, rather than his wife whom he'd been addressing, was the one to reply in a decidedly brusque fashion."Not only beyond all hope of reform, but corrupted long before I ever set eyes on a work by Hipporcrates.A child can't help but follow the examples set by those who surround her and raise her, and what I had were three older brothers, and...Mother," she finished with an affectionately wry look at Maeve.

_Which explains much in the behavior of the daughter when compared to the mother,_ Maximus couldn't help but think, wondering just what this woman's sons were like.During their months on the road, he'd been witness to more than one occasion when mother and daughter came to heads in their often antagonistic relationship.An antagonism, he'd come to realize, which hid a deep and underlying love.

"And as further evidence of our immodest mannerisms, ," Maeve intoned sardonically, her eyes resting on Maximus, " your daughter and I dared bring a stranger—a mercenary--before your table, whom we came across in the gutters of Rome."

Antius gave Maximus an indecipherable look, scrutinizing.One that made the younger man feel that the general was able to read something in him that attested to the falsity of the story he and Maeve had invented to describe his fabricated past after departing Trujillo."We'll come to your tale in good time young man, I'm quite eager to hear it, but for now, dearest," he turned to Maeve, "I'd like to hear more of Rome herself.I trust your words more than what comes by way of rumor on the mouths of soldiers newly come from the capital, or even from the official post.Is it true what they say of my brother, that he was put under house arrest for plotting against Commodus?"

While the servant boy brought out a final round of food, dandelion leaves wrapped around sweetened, honeyed ham saturated in the juices of raisins and stewed apples, Maximus tried not to choke on the swallow of wine he'd taken from his goblet, hearing the words of Antius, knowing without a doubt, they could only be referring to one man.Tried instead, to take two more swallows, thinking he needed it to overcome his sudden shock at what the general's words implied regarding the familial connections of the gens Crescenii.

Senator Gracchus, the brother of Antius.The uncle of the woman who he was, even now, trying to pound into the ground with the heavy threat of his stare as Nemhyn, not flinching from his gaze, simply gave him a warning raise of brows as covertly as she might, indicating for him to speak nothing.

Maeve, confirming the truth of what her husband had heard, glanced only briefly at the two younger persons, catching the sudden tension emanating from Maximus, before turning back to Antius."Your brother was put under house arrest soon after we arrived in Rome.Because of that, I had no chance to make known our presence to him.I thought it wiser for myself and our daughter to maintain the anonymity of peasant herb-dealers.Sometimes you hear more truth from the gossip of the gladiators when dressed as a commoner, aiding the surgeons in the sick rooms of the Circus Maximus, to stitch up wounds, or cauterizing served limbs received in the games," she murmured caustically, "than as women of nobility."

Antius, too perceptive a man to not sense there was something suddenly remiss in the atmosphere of the small gathering, frowned, but remarked neutrally, "A wiser decision regarding your safety and that of our daughter I couldn't have agreed more with.As for my brother, I would that his faith to this idealistic notion of Roman Republic, while I have always endorsed it privately, would be better tempered with caution as to the consequences his actions have concerning the protection of others associated with his name." 

Maeve, sighing in resignation, a sound Maximus had not often heard and was indicative of how heavily these thoughts were indeed preying upon her mind, said only, "Aye, husband.I would that were so as well, but you cannot force a man to abandon his visionary simplicity when he is so convinced, as your brother is, that it is a right belief.This is something I fear Pertinax has always suffered from as well:that their fellow supporters share a vision they do, of an Empire whose power is centered in the hands of Her people, and not merely in the vise of a few tyrannical, self-serving men.They do not understand when their counselors, their _amici_, succumb to corruption and greed, putting personal gain before public benefit."

"In any case," Nemhyn attempted in comfort, reaching across her couch to grasp her father's hand, "Uncle was freed, although I'm not sure if he was reinstated."Antius smiled kindly, but fleeting,at his daughter's gentle observation, before thoughts, as yet unvoiced, troubled his visage once again.

Into the momentary silence, Maximus uttered in hushed embitterment before he could keep the words from his lips, "But the rightful heir of Marcus Aurelius, the son of Verus, lies no less dead at the hands of the Guard, for all of the efforts of Gracchus or Commodus' sister."

All eyes turned to him, Antius' weighing most heavily as his words echoed in the stillness of the dining halls sudden crushing quiet."You speak, young Lucius, with suprising cynicism toward some of the most esteemed, and coveted military positions serving directly under his Imperial majesty.Especially, I might add, for a man who must once have been in the legions of Rome."

Maximus, who had been reclining on the couch, actually beginning to relax in the atmosphere of the family and their welcoming disposition, despite the distressing inferences of their dinner conversation, suddenly felt the placidity of his demeanor fall away like a shock of ice cold water upon bared skin, stiffening, but making no move otherwise."Legions," he could only repeat, dumbfounded, trying to conceal a rising dismay, wondering what had tipped the older man off ._Am I so transparent_?"I don't know what--," he started, trying to delay a disastrous revelation for them all as he saw Maeve open her mouth to interject a comment only to be silenced by the impatient wave of her husband's band.Her jaw snapped shut with an audible click, her eyes icy and glacial, but she held her tongue to Antius' remark:"I would hear what our guest has to say for himself, dearest, without your helpful commentaries being added in for good measure."

Maximus, in the intervening seconds, bringing himself to sit upright, asked with more composure,"What makes you believe I have had any connection to the Legions?"

With dubious expectancy, Antius also sitting up straighter, said, "My young and recently met friend.I have commanded soldiers a long time here in these remote regions of Rome's northern most border, once having been amongst the ranks of numerous other legionnaires myself.I know well, the marks Her regiments brand themselves with to distinguish their tour of service to Roma Mater.Is that, if I am not mistaken," the general inquired with an incline his head towards something on Maximus' shoulder, "a badly marred emblem of the Legions?What was it you were trying to conceal, I wonder?"

And indeed looking down at where the overcloak had fallen away from his shoulder, the S.P.Q.R.--singed across his left upper arm years ago during one of those initiation rites young legionnaires participated in, symbolizing youthful solidarity with fellow servicemen after surviving a first battle--stood out like a horribly distorted birthmark.The silence in the hall following Antius' question became prolonged as Maximus struggled for some reasonable explanation.Gazing at the letters, he felt, for a sick horrible second that the entire dining hall was spinning away from him, leaving him stranded, a single pillar upon a rock, deserted and forgotten to the vastness of a roiling sea. 

Maeve was frowning in agitation while her husband, still holding Maximus' gaze with a somewhat perplexed scowl, began to say something else, was abruptly interrupted by his daughter's emerging chuckle--incongruous to the awkward ambiance of the small dinner party."Mother and I had dibbs on how long it would take you to notice the tattoo on Lucius' arm, Father."It was a relief when Antius wrested his gaze away from Maximus, giving his daughter a look of deepening curiosity which she ignored for the moment, looking across to the younger man with an explicit gleam in her eyes."It seems, Lucius, you're going to have to explain why you became a mercenary after all.Having defected from the Felix Legions as you did, and being forced to find another way to make a living."

Her amusement might have been inappropriate to the moment, but her words gave him an opening by which to rescue himself, although Maximus could have done without Antius' querying, "The Felix Legions, young Lucius?This should be a remarkable story, indeed."

"You can only imagine," Maeve observed with a poised smile to her husband, though her eyes still held something of their icy glimmer.

As if responding to some unheard cue, Nemhyn moved to stand, covering her mouth with the back of one hand as she yawned."A remarkable story, and one I've been acquainted to already.If our guest is not overly offended," she said, curtsying prettily to Maximus, not quite managing to conceal the flippant fashion of her gesture as she gathered the silken, cream white folds of her dress in her hands, " and my parents are so kind as to grant their daughter leave, I would rather spend the remaining hours of the evening strolling in the governor's garden.It's said to help digestion, you know," she offered smartly as an aside to all them.

Maximus, trying to hide his resentment of her being able to escape the presence of her parents with such ease, mumbled an indistinct sounding, "Good night," as her parents each stood to grant her good night in their turn.

Maeve, hugging her daughter, receiving the younger woman's return kiss, stated acrimoniously, "It's not as though you listened when we didn't grant you permission to leave anyway."Nemhyn made no reply, only exhaling loudly in the manner of a daughter abiding her mother's constant critiques, turning so her father might kiss her in the evening's farewell.

"You might mention to Mother," Nemhyn said with affectionate goading, " that's why I _tell_ her nowadays rather than _asking_ her when I might leave the table."Antius' muted laugh followed his daughter as she turned to exit the room in a whisk of skirts, a brisk stride, her palla draped loosely over her shoulders.__

_ _

Before she entered the outer corridor, Antius called after her, "The gods be thanked for your safe return, daughter."

She stopped at the door, looking back at each of her parents, responding with warm solemnity, "And the gods be thanked for blessing your life one time more in battle, father," before disappearing into the blackness of the hallway beyond the _triclinium's_ entrance.

Antius stared after his daughter for a moment longer, before seating himself on the couch next to his wife once more, settling in for comfort.Maeve, signaling the servant boy for more wine to be brought, began pouring water into their goblets, adding the wine when it arrived.__

_ _

"Ten camels. Is that what you said the man in Antioch offered for her," the general asked his wife.__

He turned to Maximus, speaking in a caricature of deep consideration, "Is that good--ten camels?"

The younger man, playing along with the general's raillery_, _said straight-faced, "I've heard it's a moderately decent proposal for a bride price."__

Maeve shook her head, chuckling. "Why Antius, are you planning on marrying your daughter off in exchange for a bunch of pack animals who wouldn't last the month here on this island once winter set in?"

Maeve's words had Maximus grinning, despite the current ambiguity of his position with Antius.A grin which transformed into an appreciative guffaw as he heard Antius respond, "Well, no, not exactly.I was just thinking if she had ten camels offered for her hand in marriage while you were each traveling as peasant women...just think what we could get for her if she were presented in her appropriate rank."

Maeve, warming to her husband's jest, said before succumbing to a laughter that melted the remainder of her brief irritation with him, "Just think what she would do to you if you ever tried." __

_ _

The moment of humor passed, taking with it the strain that had arisen in those minutes prior to Nemhyn's exit.__When Antius asked, more amicably this time, "Now Lucius, are you ready to impart the rest of your story," Maximus--or Lucius, rather--found he was indeed prepared.Looking to Maeve once, who nodded encouragement with a barely discernible smile, he realized no matter the truth or untruth behind his next words, the tightness in his chest, nor the bitterness in his tone were forced.Throughout the story, Antius listened with unwavering intensity, probing now and then for clarification, but never asking anything which required the ex-gladiator to over-fabricate in detail.

His trepidation regarding how the general might respond to the sincerity of his tone, if not the honesty of his words, gradually dissolved as the tale played out to its finale, and the look in Antius' eyes was of a calm understanding."When a good man has been put to death unjustly, it is difficult to blame the regiments under his command for falling away. The tragedy is that the strength of Rome's arms, the devotion of Her troops founders along with the corruption of Her rulers.Mark my words well, Lucius, that as Rome now suffers for the Empire's faithlessness to Her loyal leaders, so Britannia does as well.Long ago, I pledged my fealty to Rome, but it is Britannia I will ever keep faith with.If I help you, young Lucius, could you serve Britannia, if not Rome?"

Speechless for a moment, his own eyes never leaving Antius' face, except to glance grimly, once, at Maeve, he finally said, "That depends on what you plan to offer me."Something kindled in her crystal-frozen gaze, a look Maximus knew only too well.She had been planning for this moment from the instant they first stepped foot in Ruputiae.


	3. Of Midnight and Gardens

Alright, this was supposed to be part 2 LabPC LabPC 1 1 2001-11-01T23:48:00Z 2001-11-01T23:49:00Z 31 11566 65927 Univ. of Illinois at Chicago 549 131 80962 9.2720 0 0 

Alright, this was supposed to be part 2.5, maybe 3 (I don't remember anymore;)…. actually, it turned into another chapter, but in truth, it was meant as an addendum to Chapter 1--I guess the night time setting in _Prelude to a Darker Hour_ turned out to be very long…I've noticed one of my favorite authors, Guy Kaverial, does much the same thing with the passage of time in his stories, or so I comfort myself with saying.  Wee-bit of introspection, some allusions to future characters, and yes…actual mention of the Sarmatians.  I PROMISE, I am writing the next chapter now, and they feature in it, actually they introduce it, but you know, the usual with school, work, etc.  But be warned the Sarmatians are coming;) Can't flunk, though;)  Hence, it'll probably be another 4 months till the next parts are up.  Also (and I apologize for this, but the story sort of led this direction), there's an allusion to romance in this one, but I tried to keep it relatively light, and by gods, it ain't gonna come up again for a while, and when it does, not without lots of angst, and some sexual tension…understand this story take place over a period of about 2-3 years (5 years real time if the pace I'm able to post at remains consistent;)

And in response to those who feel the characters, particularly the women, seem overly educated for their time period, or perhaps, granted too many freedoms for having lived in a relatively restrictive era in so far as civil liberties… I would like to add, there are quite a few great books, and websites addressing this issue…many of them suggesting that women, especially those in Britain, during the Roman era, seemed to have been granted more rights and liberties than their counterparts on the Continent, especially in the West.  There are etchings alluding to women as physicians (although this term was relative, as there was no actual formal education that granted one that title like we have today), shopkeepers, business associates and the like.  It wouldn't have been particularly unusual in Britain, given the fact that the indigenous Celtic society had, for a long time, been used to women in positions of influence, from queens, to priestesses, to those running farms, and of course…households.  (Come on…who hasn't heard of Boudicca, or Cartimandua…. the Brigantine queen the characters of Maeve and Nemhyn are descended from).  And as for the Sarmatians, I think I brought this up once before, lets just say Herodotus writes that their women were required to kill a man in battle before they were ever allowed to marry, and that many of them rode and hunted with their husbands, or even alone--so chew on that while you read on;)

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**Chapter 1.5 (or 2.5???): Of Midnight and Gardens**

The birds stopped singing some hours ago, after the sun had dropped below the rim of the world.  _Assuming_, Nemhyn thought, _the world was flat, and there was a rim_.  Her eldest brother, Cassius, had a tutor as a youth.  An unconventional, eccentric scholar out of Pergamun, far to the East, who was originally from Egypt, although he ranked himself as a Jew, non-practicing for what it was worth, choosing instead to honor the more 'rational' pursuits of the mind through philosophy and mathematics.  Ben-Ibrin, he'd called himself, and he contested the widely held belief of a flat earth, stating that the world was, in actuality, round--shaped as a sphere, something like the walnuts or acorns that dropped from the trees growing in the valley south of her father's residence in Eboracum during the fall. 

It had seemed an odd belief at the time.  But then she had only been a girl of seven, maybe eight winters when she'd first encountered it.  Her brother, however, always contrary as a teenager, argued the stupidity of such a ridiculous conception.  _Any half-wit looking out from the highest cliff to the western ocean could see there was nothing but infinite eternity beyond the place where the sunset._  

She smiled, remembering ben-Ibrin's kindly response.  A patient man, and loving by nature--he would have to have been in order to deal with the three rowdy sons of the _gens_ Crescenii--he didn't condemn Cassius' blatant doubt, acknowledging it may well indeed be valid, but reminding her brother of Aristotle's commentary regarding errors in judgment that resulted from a blind faith in the limited physical senses of humans.  Then, as any scholar from Pergamun worth his salt would have done, he challenged the thirteen-year-old Cassius to work through the equations of Eratosthenes, to understand just how the ancient mathematician had arrived at his conclusion of a round earth.  Cassius, quick to draw judgments with the confidence of youth, believing he could disprove such erroneous math, he took his tutor up on the dare.  

Thus, through an entire afternoon late into the evening, Nemhyn, with the adoring curiosity of a younger sister for the brother she worshipped, witnessed her brother struggle with angle measures, shadow lengths, and calculations.  Scrawling on sheets of parchment and papyrus, scratching out his work, cursing as he pulled on his tangle of dark curls, finally hooting with triumph just short of midnight--a call that echoed down the corridors from her father's study and brought the servants and her mother from bed, running to see who made such an appalling sound so late at night.  Cassius, his eyes shining with excitement, holding a hopelessly ink-blotted piece of papyrus, stated to his mother proudly_, I've got it!  By the gods, Mother, old ben-Ibrin is right!_ _Eratosthenes did prove the earth was round.  So why are there fools who still believe it's flat,_ his changing voice cracking on the word.

Her mother, the ice-pale eyes glinting with quiet amusement as she dismissed the servants apologetically, said, _You were one of those fools until now, Cassius.  You tell me, what changed your mind?   _

_Ben-Ibrin, _he'd replied.  Nemhyn, faithful to the last, wanting to suffer with every calculation her brother made, had dozed on the couch situated over by the wall some hours earlier, her youthful body needing sleep, lacking Cassius' endurance.  She'd awoken to her mother asking, _And does everyone have the advantage of a tutor like ben-Ibrin.  Who is devoted enough, and patient enough to take the time and correct your potential ignorance?_

Cassius, puzzled by his mother's peculiar question, paused in contemplation before venturing an answer.  _Well...no_, he'd replied at long last.  _Not the children of commoners, anyway.  But then, they_ _don't usually need to learn anything beyond their basic letters, and maybe simple arithmetic_.  _Since when did a farmer, a tile worker, or a stable-keeper ever need to know if the earth was round or flat, or have to quote from Pliny, or read Sophocles.  What would be the point?  _

To which Maeve, shaking her head, humored him with a rhetorical quote from Claudian: '_Let nobles vainly sail from shore to shore, for the peasants joys are fewer and their labors more.' _  Gathering her daughter in her arms, indicating it was high past the time when her son should have gone to bed, Maeve stated ruefully,_ And you wonder why such ignorance is commonplace amongst the 'artisans and rustics', my son.  Remember the next time you ask that question, Cassius, you answered it yourself.  When knowledge is hoarded by the privileged few who have the leisure to acquire it, the vast majority of the State's populace, the backbone of our Empire--your farmer, tile-worker, and stable-hand--will continue to languish in their intellectual blindness, too belabored in their chores to ever realize how they have been cheated--of their rights, and the fruits of their toil.   _

As the meaning of his mother's words sank in, Cassius had gone to bed that night with a very contrite look on his face.  Needless to say, years later, when he and Imona had married in a series of events pushing the boundaries of scandal, he had made the very radical decision to employ a much older, but no less learned ben-Ibrin to educate not only his own children, but that of his household staff, the tenants of his country villa, and the children of the surrounding hamlets outside of Arbeia.  Suffice it to say, the legacy of eccentricity characterizing the _gens_ Crescenii was passed on, almost as a more, within the family line.  A tradition originating years before, when a Roman centurion had taken to marriage the daughter of a Brigantine chieftan, who insisted on educating not only her sons, but a daughter, much to the insulted horror of Britannia's social élite.

_In the end_, she thought wryly, tearing off a chunk of bread, sprinkling the crumbs into the water, _feeding fish and enjoying the peace of the garden are what I would most have preferred had I been given a choice in the matter.  _Scholars still clashed over a definitive agreement as to the earth being round of flat; trained physicians couldn't make up their minds as to whether illness resulted from some imbalance of the humours, an influx of evil pneuma, or--as she personally felt--a natural cause that had yet to be revealed, leaving that nagging sense there was a key element still waiting to be discovered concerning the spread of infections common to the urban populations of Imperial cities.  __

Such was the turmoil of active minds, preoccupied with the condition of human existence, removed--alienated--from the regular rigors of subsistence that plagued the vast run of the Empire's people.   The ones, native Briton or Roman peasant, who suffered the greatest losses when their land had been over-run, their crops and villages burned, and their herd animals slaughtered.   The tribes had taken to more aggressive measures in the intervening years of her and her mother's travels, venturing ever further beyond the poorly monitored defenses of the Antonine front.  

The full blow of her father's words--_you don't want to know what became of the Votadini villages_--preyed on her mind like scavenger birds did on a fresh carcass.  The military would have ample resources--field physicians, _medicus ordinarii_, surgeons and the like who, if not always the most thoroughly trained, would be sufficient in seeing to the needs of the soldiers.  The outlying villages, the remote farms of the commoners who depended on the strength and skill of a well-manned military, those were the hardest hit--their people most in need, as she saw it, of the care she might provide for survivors.  If anyone had indeed survived.   But if the companies of _auxilia_ had suffered as badly as her father had described, and the Caledonii had managed even to take out a good portion of the legionary VI, all trained soldiers, accustomed to the hardships of battle, she could only imagine, despite efforts to quell the rising dread, how badly the damage sustained by civilian populations surrounding Habitunacum, and Bremenium had been.

These worries seemed very far away, though, from the solitude of this garden, on this first night of her return to the beloved land of her birth. The quiet bubble of the fountain, an occasional whisper of breeze, the muffled impression of noise from beyond the thick stone walls of the governor's palace, carried distant sounds of Londinium's human activity as people took to the streets seeking the evening's entertainment.

A servant had come through earlier, while she and her family were eating, lighting the torches mounted on the columns of limestone surrounding the garden's perimeter.  The soft glow of the flames melded to create a nimbus of coronal light that filtered through the gentle swaying of willow branches, set at the borders of the garden's hedge rows, and a scent of crushed mint and mingled juniper drifted with lacy delicacy upon the night air.

There was a low growth of verbena spread like a carpet across the entire garden, stems mixed with the gentians whose delicate purple and pink asters, in daylight, blossomed everywhere, even between the cracks of the brick-laid walkways that ran like a maze across the man-made arboretum.  But in this seeming paradise of floral heaven, the evening primroses, set in clay pots around the fountain, their yellow and white bell-like buds, were the only flowers in complete blossom at the moment.  Even the roses, royalty in this insular kingdom, planted at the edges of the brick-paths, interspersed with lilies and fennel, had closed their magnificent crown of petals for the slumber of night.  

The tranquility soothed, at least momentarily, Nemhyn's disquiet as she continued to gaze into the fountain, watching for the occasional fish coming to the surface, still seeking remnants of the crumbs she'd sprinkled in earlier.  Disappointed in the endeavor, the water-borne denizens would dive back to the depths of the fountain's basin with a splash that almost sounded indignant to Nemhyn's ears.  

_Depths _wasn't exactly the word, she reflected meanderingly.  An adult could probably touch the soil sodden bottom without stretching over the basin's edge too much, but with only the illuming of the torches, the shadows of the evening made the pool, for all Nemhyn could see of it's jet-surface, the entrance to the very underworld of Cerridwen.  She swirled her hand in the water absently, breaking the mirror-like surface. The sudden snapping of a twig, the sound of cloth grazing against brush, shattered her reverie only moments later, making her spring up in startlement to confront the shadow which emerged from underneath the partially obscuring shelter of two sapling oaks arching over the path leading to the fountain from the east side of the peristyle.  

In her alarm, as brief as it was, she had inadvertently splashed water up onto her face and neck.  To her annoyance, her palla was the only thing she had on hand with which to dry herself off.  She hissed with wordless annoyance at the undisguised amusement in Maximus' tone as he said, "I'm not sure how far down the fountain goes, but just by the nature of the temperature tonight, one would think it a rather unsuitable moment to take a swim.  Don't you think?"

She was sure the threat of her glare was lost to the surrounding darkness for he scarcely raised a brow over deep-set, flint grey eyes that, in the dim torchlight, were darkened to the color of coal. 

Nemhyn settled back onto the fountain's rim, trying to regain a modicum of lost dignity, dabbing at areas along her face that felt the touch of water, saying, with more umbrage than she truly intended, "You startled the living wits out of me.  No one ever walks out here after dark."

He lowered himself to the ground beside her, leaning back against the bowl of the fountain.  "You couldn't have been that startled.  You didn't scream."

It was too dark to tell with only the light cast by the torches, but Nemhyn thought she saw the traces of a smirk across his features.  Re-arranging her palla about her shoulders with a decisively sharp motion, she stated flatly, "I don't scream, Spaniard."  She was right, he had been smirking.  She at least tried to give him credit for attempting to conceal it, but the chuckle that welled up from deep in his chest, a pleasant resonant sound that reminded her of her father, oddly enough, betrayed his efforts.

"No," he began, still smiling, "you don't strike me as he type of woman who would scream if she found her royal person endangered.  I think you'd be more inclined to draw a dagger on your poor assailant, send him scampering the other direction with not a few wounds to show for his misdemeanor."  

He started at her sudden burst of laughter, as though he'd been expecting her to rejoin with another sharp remark.  "Now you're beginning to understand the women of Britannia, Spaniard.  If you remember that, you'll do just fine here, I think."  His expression seemed to turn inward at her words, and for a moment, she feared she had breached some boundary of a tentatively defined friendship.  But he shook his head once, in an odd, dismissive gesture, joining in her quick gaiety with that same deep-toned, easy laugh from before.

"And here I presumed you and your mother were the exception rather than the rule.  Are you telling me all women in Britannia require a dagger to fend off potential assailants?"

"Only those daring enough to travel beyond their homeland," came her response, half laughing as she caught his jesting mood.  "Men who inhabit these shores are not like those beyond Her borders."

"So I've heard.  Yet the study medicine still inspires the noble physician to brave not only sea-sickness, flea-ridden bed mats, the occasional bowel flux, but also licentious Syrians who would offer the handsome bride-price of ten camels for a seemingly accomplished healer to serve in his household and bear his children."  

With an indignant, "Ugh," Nemhyn remonstrated, "I was about to murder mother for bringing that up tonight for this very reason.  I knew you wouldn't let me live that down." Hugging her palla about herself, she leaned forward on the fountain's edge to see just what he was looking for so intently amongst the carpet of greenery growing up between the cracks of brick around the basin.

"It's not your mother you should be thinking to murder," Maximus stated in absent aside.  "It's your father who suggested they offer you in full aristocratic wealth just to see how many more camels they might win from that poor, unsuspecting Syrian."  

Her huff of insulted dignity was cut short by his added, "Of course you mother also stated your resulting displeasure if you were ever to be married off in such ignominious fashion," choosing, while he spoke, a stray pebble from underneath a twisting of thick bunched weed, holding it up to the dim torch light.

"Well," she said pointedly, trying to calm her irritation at his nonchalant amusement, "it seems your position with my father improved from the time I left.  A fortunate thing I was there to suggest that rather improvised lead-in to your...newly chosen career, shall I say."

That made him look back at her from his place on the ground, his glance suddenly as sharp as her words had been.  "A fortunate thing I suggested to your mother, while crossing to Ruputiae, we devise some explanation for my connection to the legions, and not just for my familiarity with weapons. "

She puzzled over his caustic tone.  "You didn't want to mention the military at all, did you?  For some reason, it makes you feel like you're lying to him."

The pebble he'd been scrutinizing ever so closely fell with a loud plop, breaking the calm surface of the water where he'd tossed it, the sound echoing through the quiet stillness of the garden, belying the muted rebellion of his reply.  "You're father seems like an honorable man, and  I'm living upon a veil of deception because of his unerring trust in you and your mother."  

The breeze stirred slightly, carrying the sound of distant voices from the city outside, obscured by the palace walls, lifting an annoying tendril that had escaped the combs holding back her hair. She scraped it back from her face absently, in a gesture more characteristic than she knew.  "Don't be too regretful, Maximus, about your breach of honesty," she said with a wry smile.  "We're all living a lie in some fashion or another."

He frowned at her oddly as she went on, adding, "People see me like this and think this is all I am," motioning with her hand, indicating at her appearance discursively.  "Another primped up daughter of a Roman general, decked in my silks and jewels, lying about in my life of luxury with never a worry more than when my newest purchase of dresses can be made for my next dinner party."

He leaned back against the rim of the fountain with a casual shrug that annoyed her, for it seemed to belittle the commiseration of her words.  "I met you, first, as a peasant woman traveling with a donkey and wagon before I ever knew you were nobility.  Is that guise truer to your nature, perhaps, because looking at you, as you are now," he remarked, turning to face her with a disconcertingly direct gaze,  "it's difficult to imagine you as anything else."

"Proving," she replied with effortless grace and an observation couched in dry wit, not thrown off by the subtlety of his compliment, "the power of a good bath and decent clothes to blur the markings of social class we of the…_nobility_," spoken with just the correct amount self-mockingly elite emphasis, " like to think are so clear in differentiating us from the rest of the Empire's common citizenry." 

"Meaning," he added for good measure, and a facetious grin, "there's not much difference between a pig-keeper and a senator when all is said and done."  

She declined to comment, shaking her head, her own smile broadening to laughter, fleeting, as his chuckling grew quiet and he looked at her, direct again, his face still, his eyes suddenly troubled.

"Do you really believe that?  That the difference between a slave and a senator, the boundaries of their rights can be so indistinct, in spite of lineage, what the law says is their due in so far as their freedom, or lack thereof?"

She sighed, a muted sound, collecting her thoughts.  "I don't know, exactly.  I believe the nature of my discipline--the Art--bears witness to the fact that death and sickness do not discriminate in who they chose to inflict.  That the peasants and slaves suffer more in time of plagues, or during the winter.  That there are those who call themselves physician, yet refuse to treat ones most in need of their care because they cannot pay the proscribed fees, are not wealthy enough or hold a reputed position of power.  Those same men will break another's hard earned bread, relegating a patient to the status of impoverished because he purchases a remedy over-priced and whose success is hardly guaranteed.  And that, to me," she concluded in a near whisper, trying to contain a sudden, surprising vehemence, "seems a profanity to the Oath, to the spirit of healing.  But then," she stated with an uncertain look, "who am I to judge; being only a woman who learned the Art because I grew up in a place where Roman tradition rests uneasy alongside Celtic liberties."

He took her hand in his, catching her by surprise, grasping it with an earnestness that the tone of his voice mirrored.  "You and your mother helped me unquestioningly, and with a skill that could rival the most thoroughly trained physicians, Nemhyn… and I was only a slave.  I have to know though, if it had not been me, but Commodus, Lucilla had asked for you and your mother to aide that night in Rome, would you still have done it?  Worked to save his life, in spite of knowing what he was, what a danger he was to you and your family, given what Senator Gracchus was embroiled in?"

Unsettled by his question, she was silent for a moment, not knowing what he wanted to hear, what would set his mind at ease.  She had a feeling this had been a sentiment troubling him for some time, remaining unvoiced because there had never been an appropriate point along their journey at which to ask it.  It was something he should have asked her mother, who would have known how to answer honestly, tapering that honesty with a talent for comfort in a way Nemhyn, for all of her skill in the Art, had never acquired.  Maeve's daughter could only offer truth, and in truth, she answered him with a bluntness that, had she been Maximus, she wouldn't have blamed him had he upped and left, vowing never to speak with her again. 

"Yes," she said, watching his gaze darken with accusation, struggling with the implications of that one basic word.  She didn't flinch, even when he squeezed her hands painfully, attempting to overcome the initial retort that stood just short of being spoken.  Gradually, as his scowl softened in severity, he took a deep breath, still grasping her hands, giving her a look of apology, trusting himself to speak once more in a voice tight with control. 

"That answer shows me something of yours and your mother's true nature--that you adhere to the ideals of your discipline, remain faithful to your duty, even when your personal beliefs may be called into question.  That, above many things, Nemhyn, is to be praised."

In the ensuing silence following his last words, she was certain she could hear his thoughts as clearly as her mother might very well have been able to. _And that faithfulness is something I failed at in seeing to a duty I had been sworn to.  _The words, while never verbalized, seemed to echo into the murmur of the breeze blowing through the willow fronds, rustling the leaves, while the soft burbling of water filled the quiet, spilling out from the fountain's well-spring.  

A snatch of words from a conversation that had taken place between them nearly two months before came back to her:  _vengeance drove my actions--_words reflecting a guilt he'd been contending with since awakening in that little village near Ravenna, a self-condemnation associated with walking the paths of the living when others he'd been sworn to defend were now dead, believing himself--rightly or wrongly--responsible_._

A rising compassion, induced by the memory of those words, bade her next action as she removed her hands from his gently, to lean forward slightly, stroke back the hair which, in its length, had begun to curl over his brow and down neck.  She recalled vaguely, a memory of another night from years before, stolen hours of an evening, a mutual sorrow shared with another man, a leader of a proud and free people's_, _recently subjugated to the will of the Empire, mourning the loss of that freedom, and the more personal, infinitely deeper loss of a beloved wife.  Then, she had been much younger, nineteen, maybe twenty, had seen much less of the world, though she knew a great deal of suffering as she could only help but know, having chosen to practice the discipline she did.  That had always been other people's grief, though, never her own. Until that winter, maybe six or seven years before, finding solace in the shared sorrow of one who understood about loved ones and the rift in the heart their loss forms upon their death. 

If Maximus was taken aback by her sudden proximity, the way her face was merely a fingers length or two from his, one hand stroking back his hair, the other resting on his shoulder, the potential intimacy that might have been suggested had he chosen to interpret her gesture in that manner, he gave no such indication.  He merely studied her with that same fixed gaze, holding himself to stillness, his eyes shadowed by the garden's obscuring darkness, the dance of the torch light playing off his features, casting lengthened shadows of the trees to the impenetrable corners of the enclosure.   

She couldn't for the life of her, remember the words she had spoken to that other man so many years before.  They certainly couldn't have been anything resembling what she was about to say now.  Back then, she too had been suffering her own quiet griefwhereas, despite the recent outbreaks of battle reported from across the Wall, Nemhyn's heart was filled with that faint thrumming of joy, the certainty she had returned to the land of her birth after so long away. 

Softly then, like the lightest trace of her finger across his cheek, before the hand which had been in his hair came to rest upon his other shoulder_, _holding his gaze, she said, "You told me once, I was not the one to offer you absolution, Maximus, and I would never presume to be so now.  Yet twice, you share these thoughts with me and they leave a lasting sadness in their wake_.  _For what consolation this is, I will say there has not been a single day, from when Lucilla first appealed to us for help, that I have not thanked the gods it was you, rather than Commodus, the daughter of Marcus Aurelius asked us to aid.  For the sake of my family, for the preservation of peace upon my homeland, and the lives of Britannia's people, I thank the gods for that," she finished in subdued conviction.__

He seemed to contemplate the solemnity of her words for a beat, long enough for a bird, disturbed by some unknown thing, to seek new nesting amongst the branches in a whooshing of feathers and leaves.  Their attention was so rapt upon one another; the small ruckus caused by the creature might well have been a feather dropping from the sky to land on the soft earth.  Finally, with equal gravity, and a motion of his own that left her perturbed for its very humbleness, removing her hands from his shoulders carefully, enfolding them within his own, he brought them to his lips to kiss her fingers gently, saying with somber gratitude, "And for that, I ought to be the one thanking you, Lady.  You and your mother for my life, and your adherence to duty, despite the ingratitude of a slave who felt himself cheated by death in being allowed to live," giving each of her hands a squeeze before releasing them.

Struck to a contemplative silence, en spelled by the melancholy woven into their discourse, his last words, that mention of 'duty' sparked a thought, unrelated to anything they had as yet, discussed, but promised to break the sobriety of their mood.  Gripping his shoulder to get his attention as he turned once more to lean against the bowl of the fountain, Nemhyn asked, "Speaking of duty, you never shared with me what happened after I left the _triclinium_.  What task father decided was appropriate for you."

Partaking in her attempt to lighten the heaviness of the mood, he quipped,  "Cleaning stalls," alluding to the ongoing jest pertaining to the donkey, Hercules.  The faithful beast had pulled their wagon the miles through Italia, and then Hispania--was, even now, resting quite comfortably with a full belly and soft bedding of fresh straw for the night in the palace stables. 

She giggled at his comment, remarking, "Father was that impressed with your mercenary story, then.  Which part did he approve of more, you defecting from the Felix Legions in protest to the death of the renowned General, or mother and I finding you unconscious in the sewage drains of Rome's _Macellum Liviae_ district?"

His answering chuckle, deep and easy as it had been when he'd first come upon her, resonated in the garden's solitary quiet. "Neither.  He liked the part where I insisted on seeing you and your mother back safely to your homeland, refusing the...how did he put it--monetary incentive--motivated out of my simple honor as a former soldier of the Legions, raised on the red-blooded virtues of the old Republic, returning the favor of my life for the selfless deed of two peasant women."

She couldn't quite hide the sarcastic irony of her tone when she said, "You may not be comfortable lying, Maximus, but I'm wondering if anyone ever said you can spin as fine a tale as Aesop was rumored to."

He turned to face her at that, his expression all innocent askewity. "Why, don't you believe me when I say I'm going north to clean stalls for the mighty Empire?"

She couldn't help the crack that slipped past her lips, laughingly stating, "Oh my, you truly haven't had your vengeance upon the Empire yet, have you?  Dark days ahead for Britannia, and indeed, for Roma Mater, the hour your entrusted with a--," watching as the facade of the ex-gladiator all at once fell, and she realized with an appalling feeling, her jocularity fading, the utter insensitivity of her words, the mockery he must have thought they made of a tenuous situation.

She could feel herself flush, the color rising in her cheeks as she looked away in uncharacteristic shame, stammering an, "I'm sorry...I shouldn't have said that...I...that...was so--."  She didn't see his expression relax, only daring to meet his eyes again, her chagrin giving way to puzzlement, when she heard him begin to chuckle.

Shaking his head with pondering amusement, he said, "You are irreverent, aren't you?"

"It's a trait that only became perfected with age, I'm afraid," she replied, attempting contrition.  Words he responded to with an expansive laugh, a sound welling up from his chest, and touched his eyes with a dancing light.  

"Meekness doesn't become you, Nemhyn.  Had I just met you, I might be taken in," he stated through his mirth.  Despite the fact that he had a point concerning her character, she still huffed, irate--more out of form than with any real emphasis, exasperated by his sudden shifts in mood.  Swallowing another guffaw at her posturing of annoyance, he went on, cautioning, "I know that look.  It's the same one you had on Theseus' ship when your mother said you could help me clean up after Hercules, so before you let your temper get the better of you, and you wring my neck, let me say your father would be at a terrible loss in explaining how a man he's just appointed cavalry master to a northern _auxilia_ cohort never arrived to his posting because he died mysteriously by the daughter's hand."

Rather doubtfully, her compunction, the proceeding vexation forgotten in light of his news, she asked, "You know horses, then?" 

For a moment, he managed to look so scandalized by her inquiry, she feared she had truly offended him.  The sternness of his expression lapsed though, watching the self-reproach rise once more across her features.  "Yes, Nehmhyn, I know horses," he reassured in tones of such feigned patronizing, as though speaking to a child, she couldn't help the giggle that escaped past her lips.  "Probably better than I know people, in fact," he added, with a rather self-effacing cock of an eyebrow.

"Will it be enough, Maximus," she asked, her brief mirth evaporating. "Will you be happy?"  

A pensive calm came over his visage, searching her face, studying her eyes for what seemed a countless handful of minutes, reaching for an appropriate answer.  She could feel the breeze blow loose that annoying tendril of hair again, the stray locks wisping across her eyes and forehead, a stiffness beginning to form in her neck as a result of her slightly inclined posture while she held that strange, tranquil gaze of his.

He leaned forward onto his knees, coming closer to face her, his proximity revealed the fact he spoke no louder than a whisper, yet she could hear him clearly.  

"For Maximus, the General…perhaps not," he said into the silence of rustling leaves, and the fountains spilling waters.  This time, she was the one to hold herself to a schooled stillness.  With a motion of his hand, slow, betraying a tenderness unexpected in one who had, for so long held the sword and shield, whose very clasp, if driven to such a rage, could easily have ripped a man's throat out, he stroked back the irritating strands that had caught in her eyes, making them water, tucking the long, curling tendrils gently behind her ear. "For Maximus, the Slave, it is far more than anything he might have dared pray for, had his belief in the gods not died with his family.  For Lucius Castus, it is what his heart wanted his whole life, to be this…a simple man, with an uncomplicated duty, one that fulfills a purpose and does not glean glory from blood, but from true, honest labor."

The spell of the setting, at that moment, was a powerful thing to resist: this entrapment of nighttime and shadowed, isolated gardens. Lurid tales of what transpired in these places between men and women flashed through her mind.  Indeed, one move, on her part or his, a simple bend of the neck, raise of the chin, and many things might have been acted on. 

Instead, as she had done all those years before, with that other man--who for a season had become her lover because of that one night of shared grieving in a garden to the north of her homeland--she gently placed her hands on either side of Maximus' face.  He made no move but to close his eyes, let out a quiet breath as she leaned forward, placing a sisterly kiss upon his forehead. 

Despite the broiling thoughts of what could happen between men and women caught unawares by moonlight and gardens, she drew back, murmuring softly, "Then for Lucius Castus, I wish him the blessing of happiness, whether it be granted by the will of the gods, or simply the choices of men and women, that he find the peace he so desperately seeks in life rather than death," adding silently, _but the gods, if they exist, will not allow any man, despite how he has already suffered_.  A morbid sadness must have fallen transparent across her features at the unspoken thought, for when he opened his eyes, he was frowning at her with rare concern.  

"Are you o-kay," he asked with a sincerity that broke through her sudden melancholy, removing her hands from his face to grasp them in his own.  

She blinked, shaking her head once to disperse the remainder of her mood and thoughts. "Yes," she smiled wearily.  "The night, which was long when I first came out here, has grown only longer and I have a sudden wish for my bed."

Her response made him grin, a lopsided half-smile as he nodded in wordless accord, shaking off the remnants of nighttime's solitary spell and lush gardens, which, perhaps, had threatened to capture him as well.  He stood with her, as she rose from her place at the basin's edge, releasing her hands finally while she stretched to relieve the cramp in her legs, too long folded underneath her, undo the kink in her neck.  

After readjusting her palla, smoothing the finely woven cloth of her dress amidst its swathes of silken wraps and bronzed fastenings, she offered her arm to him, which he took, one might have thought, with the grace of a courtier. Guiding her down the path to the insular garden's eastern entrance, beneath the branches of the sapling oaks, and the sheltering willow trees, their heavy boughs forming a bower to the adjoining portico, he asked casually, "You depart tomorrow, then?"

She nodded, replying, "Most of the wounded will probably be taken to the hospital at Corpistitium, and they likely have all the help they need for the soldiers. There are so many isolated settlements, though," her voice tightening with apprehension, "hidden by pockets of trees, sheltered by the moors and valleys north of the Wall. They are never concealed well enough from raiding war-bands, and if the damage to the countryside was as extensive as father describes, those people, so long as there were survivors, will be most in need of what assistance I might provide." 

They came to pause just short of the series of colonnades edging the eastern corridor, their, grooved, limestone gleaming an eerie whitish gray despite the surrounding darkness of late evening.  In a rather mulling tone, he remarked, "You know, I do find it ironic that your mother still managed to retain me in service to the military, despite my refusing to bear arms for Rome."

Her glance, as she turned to face him, was immured with bafflement.  "However father chose that particular appointment for you, I can assure you, this time, it was coincidence and no part of mother's doing. Besides," she went on, ignoring his look of skepticism, "your position is almost civilian, in any case. You hold the same rank as any surgeon, veterinarian, or architect.  You won't see active combat.  Where are you meant to be stationed?"

"A place called Cattaractonium," he said with a slight frown, shrugging.  "I'm not familiar with it, but it has the nice ring of small and inconspicuous, which is exactly,--" breaking off abruptly, disconcerted by her sudden, extremely un lady-like snort, that became a helpless tirade of laughter, causing her shoulders to shake in undisguised merriment.

"Cattera--," she tried to get out between helpless hiccoughs.  "Cattar--Cattaractonium," finally succeeding, before she fell into another helpless round of raillery, struggling to stifle her mirth, seeing his perplexity at her sudden humor gradually became a hounding suspicion. Attempting a look of innocent presumption, when he asked with cautious undertone, "Nemhyn, what aren't you telling me, that I apparently ought to know about Cattaractonium," she was hard pressed to control a new round of threatening giggles, trying to keep her face straight.

Her tone light, she explained, "Dear gods, Spaniard. The fort itself may hold no more recognition than any backwater installation along the Danube, but it most certainly is _not _inconspicuous, at least not upon these shores. Father is either desperate, or he was highly impressed with some part of your fabricated past.  Due to the rather…unconventional nature of the _auxilia_ force stationed at Cattaractonium, the fort has seen, maybe eight previous men try and fulfill the duties of the post you have just been assigned.  That figures to roughly a man a year, for the last eight the company has inhabited the stronghold."

"Just what _auxilia _force…," he began, the initial consternation coloring his furrowed brow, smoothing away as realization set in, and lost memories came to the forefront of his mind.  

"That's right, Maximus…think--the end of the Macromanni War, the expulsion of the Quadi, the Roxalani, and the Royal Iazygees from the territory they claimed on the south banks of Mother Danu.  The treaty-

"…the treaty that sent 8000 men of the Sarmatian Nation," he filled in, "to be dispersed throughout the Empire.  And your father thinks that I have the ability to work with wild horsemen from the eastern steppes in raising a breeding and training operation. I fought these men as enemies of the Empire, and led Rome in victory against them.  Dear gods," he finished with a perfunctory tone, "indeed." 

He looked down at her, his gaze hooded, attempting to hide the consternation this new knowledge afforded.  A worry he couldn't hold onto in light of the sudden smile that broke over his features, relaxing them to a boyish carelessness.  "It's still horses.  How much better to work with a people who must know them like they know their own skin." 

She laughed at that.  "Careful, Spaniard, you might become an optimist, yet," she teased, before explaining without lingering levity, "For most Romans, they are a difficult peoples to understand, I think.  Men who spent their lives wandering, herding, and hunting…never settling down.  They have been forced to a foreign existence, and they hold the same contempt for towns and cities that any decent citizen of the Empire does for their tribal customs."

"You seem to be quite familiar with them," the ex-gladiator observed, studying her with puzzlement as she blinked, trying to hide the short-lived grimace that played across her features as memory, once more, found entry into her thoughts. 

"You see, Cattaractonium is not unique only because of the Sarmatians, but because the man who was once the prince of their entire nation is stationed there."  She paused as Maximus' expression clouded over with a sober remoteness.  

"He would kill me if he ever learned who I was," he said in a voice, hollow, not with fear, but distant reflection.  "If he ever learned the part I had in what he must view as his demise, the utter defeat and enslavement of his peoples."  His eyes flickered across her face, adding, "The gods' have an odd way of meting justice from deeds done a long time since."

"Maybe," she agreed nonchalantly.  "But then the honor of men, and their sense of morality when it comes to the rules of warfare is an odd thing for any woman to understand.  I can tell you they make no secret of their resentment in being banished from their homeland."

The words were hardly comforting, she realized.  He didn't seem overly bothered by her description of the steppe warriors, however, simply pondering with that ironic detachment so characterizing his demeanor since Trujillo. 

"They have a weakness for cider," she said, rather spontaneously.  

"What," he asked, looking down on her as though she'd lost her wits. 

"Buy them cider," she reiterated.  "If memory serves, there is a certain tavern in the _vicus_ outside of the military fort, frequented by the prince and his closest comrades.  It's run by a man named Carogennes…,"she elaborated, verbally portraying the appearance of the soldiers she advised the ex-gladiator to confront in a shady sounding ale-house, gentling them with a mug of drink.

"Believe me," she concluded wryly, "Meeting them this way is bound to endear you to Batrades and his decurion before your…as yet, undemonstrated skill with horses will."  Adding tactfully, seeing the insult cross his features, "No matter how apt a horseman you might be, in truth."

She meant to take her leave at that, about to part with an amiable _good evening_, when he said stiffly, "Between you and your mother, one would think I have the capabilities of a half-wit in handling myself without your dictates.  Are you certain one of you doesn't want to accompany me--just to ensure I don't manage to bungle anything else you two have devised regarding my behavior, my identity…perhaps the way I should armor myself when I arrive, or how I ought to conduct myself with the commanding officers." 

The scathing tone caught her, stopped her from turning away just yet.  He hadn't spoken like that to her for quite some time, and her initial instinct was to respond just as bitingly.  An urge she suppressed with some effort, although she couldn't rid herself of the sudden churning ire at his pointed comment. At times, he had a knack for knowing how to snub the best meant of intentions. 

She stepped towards him, coming to stand as close as two persons could without touching, looking up at him, her head tilted to the side slightly.  "Really, Spaniard," she said in a mockery of deep scrutiny, "is that what you believe my mother and I have been doing.  Directing each and every action you are meant to take."   Her face was, once again, only a finger's width from his, her chin upturned slightly, gadging his reaction, daring him to move back from her nearness.  She didn't have far to look up, as she was tall for a woman, and he was of middling height for a man.

There was an odd glint in his eyes, not masqued completely by the careful neutrality of his visage.  "In part, yes," he answered her softly, not moving back, but raising his chin slightly away from her face.

"I find it fascinating," she said with dangerous softness, "a man should be aware of such a realization when it concerns his life, the direction he would have it take, and still remain blind to the fact that every woman, no matter what class she is born to, lives everyday of her life, from birth to death, governed by the dictates of men."

He was as motionless as a statue, holding her gaze with a razor-edged sharpness that, had she been an easier soul to intimidate, she may well have shrunk from.  "I have never tried to govern how any woman ought to lead her life," he articulated carefully, still not moving away from her proximity.  

It was, in some way, a battle wills, such as they had often partaken in throughout their overland journey from Italia to Hispania.  This setting was different though, enshrouded as they were by moonlight, darkness, and a lush garden. The odd intimacy which had flowed between them in this arboreal kingdom, isolated by nighttime from the events of the outer world, must have uncovered a recklessness from her youth she had never successfully buried, despite having long adopted the staid practicality of adulthood and the healer's profession. 

There were tales told by the Old People of this island, of demons, and fey creatures living upon the incorporeal beams of Luna, spreading the madness of urge and irrationality.  It was the only explanation for what she did next, tipping her chin up barely a hair's breadth more, letting her lips brush his softly, as words flew through her mind: …_the effects of the moon are similar to the effects of wisdom and reason…_

Whatever Plutarch had to say on the effects of moonlight and the minds of men, her action had nothing to do with wisdom, but everything to do with reason; she had meant her gesture to be the very source of insolence, impulsive in the way of wishing to see just how he would respond, expecting him to push her away in scorn, reproach her for the brashness of her action.  

Her brazenness might even have achieved the desired effect, had the scales of control not balanced in his favor.  With a rush of astonishment, smothered as immediately as it had awakened, by the effect his unanticipated motion, she felt his hands capture her face, pressing into the kiss with a slow, savoring tenderness, a gentle pressure that made her lean into him, seeking to prolong this unexpected ardency, unaware of her response.

And it seemed to go on like that, for a timeless eternity, where his breath mingled with hers, the taste of his lips, still sweetened with the remnants of the wine from dinner, enraptured her, numbing her mind to anything and everything, but this one moment.  

A sound shattered down the hallway, not loud, but close enough to their vicinity to break through her spellbound breathlessness--the clattering of a loose tile, severed perhaps, by an errant feline clamoring about the palace roof, for reasons only cat-kind was privy to.

It was enough to ground her senses back to sanity, and the substance of solid earth rather than moonlight.  With an abrupt turn of her head, she broke their contact, although her arms, which had unwittingly circled around his neck at some point in that gentle caress of lips, dared not let him go, attempting to still her reeling mind, and equally unsteady legs.   Resting her head against his chest, listening to the pounding of his heart, following the rise and fall of his breathing, she did not want to look up at him, even when she felt him pull her close with a quiet sigh, his own arms encircling her form, burying his face, for a moment in her hair.  

When she finally moved away from him, he let her go unresisting, his arms falling to his side.  It didn't occur to her, while she had valiantly been coming to regain her composure, conceal her stupification, hoping her legs wouldn't betray her, and fall to the ground like a collapsed carpet, he might have been holding onto her for the same reason she had been clinging to him.  To brace himself against this sudden, unexpected vulnerability, struggling to hide it deep.

She must have been more successful than he was at recovering her mien of composure.  When she finally stole herself to meet his eyes, she had anticipated some sort of shocked condemnation, perhaps a slurry of words reviling her for the indecency of her action, or an awkward apology, a mention of his wife…perhaps even of Lucilla, though in what respect she didn't want to know.  The simple, undisguised bemusement, still blatant across his face, she wasn't prepared for, and the crass comment she had been intending in responsive defense to his never forthcoming accusation fell away to a silence of mutual stunnation.  

She swallowed, once into the late evening's peaceful solitude, her voice, when she found it, steadier than she might have expected, saying with forced indifference, "Like I said, you'll do just fine with the women of Britannia, Spaniard, so long as you remember to cater to their choice, and not try to overrule their will as Romans have a habit of doing.  A pity, though, to you and the women of Cattaractonium, if you only save yourself for the memory of a buried wife, and the long forgotten caresses a royal woman.  It's a long winter in the north."  

She turned, then, pulling her palla about her shoulders as she set a brisk pace away from him, not wanting to hear how he would reply.  A retreat to her own bed, safe in the women's quarters, down a hallway branching from the one where they stood.  Safe, but not far enough from this sudden turmoil that had taken root in her heart.  A turmoil she was praying gods to grant her the small mercy of obliterating so she might regain her self-possession, and disguise--no guard-- against the maddening confusion of her emotions.  She was a blasted fool.

******************************************************************************

_He was a blasted fool.  _

The action, like the garden setting, had begun to incorporate a quality of dreamlike reality, that even as he watched her retreating form, swallowed by the shadows of the corridor when she turned the corner, was already causing him to second-guess its occurrence.

Except that the sensation of her lips, the feel of where she had leaned against him afterwards, breathing in time to his own shocked breath, for those brief moments, left a lingering impression of intoxication, a befuddlement that could addle the good sense of a man if one let himself be drawn in.  

In her sudden absence, there was only silence, and the quiet chirp of a frog, a chorus of crickets filling the hours of the mid-night.  

"Gods," he breathed out, leaning his head back against a pillar, his posture reflecting a confused exhaustion he'd been holding at bay since the evening meal's conclusion.

It was one thing to find brief comfort in the kiss of woman who had once shared, not only his bed, but his soul, the very essence of his mind.  They had both needed that--a poignant remembrance of their youth, a time when they had faced the world with novelty--or more accurately, naiveté.  Perhaps Lucilla had sensed on some subconscious level, the utter impossibility of their task in trying to bring down Commodus, the potential for failure, and they each needed that joined reassurance, as momentary…as fleeting as it might have been.  

As fleeting as the kiss he had just shared with the daughter of, yet, another Roman general.  He felt like banging his head against the wall, if only to ensure he hadn't been burned, in truth, upon that funeral pyre back in Rome. 

If he had been a different man, less scarred by a past and the loss of his ideals, of the one woman who had been his soul, and the other a traitor to his heart, he might have fallen into this same bewitchment.  

Only there was no bewitchment; no notion of seduction, nor even an attempt.  He knew it had been a simple game to her, an action to see his reaction…so juvenile in its way, like a teenage girl trying out the newly discovered assets of her beauty, seeing how far she might drive a man mad with wanting before she hid behind the constructs of innocence and virtue.

But Nemhyn was no girl.  Not only her age, but the very action of her kiss convinced him of that.  So he decided to play along, simply to see how far she might go.  And in the process, was completely disarmed by her unguarded reaction to his own improvidence in drawing out what she had initiated.  There was nothing of the measured response he might have expected of a casual seductress, a woman accustomed to playing these games with men.  There had only been the artless simplicity of her arms coming up around his neck, and moments later, a guileless effort to end a game, intentional or not, that had managed to backfire on the both of them.  

He knew because she had been shaking during those moments when she had rested her head against his chest, sure she could hear the traitorous hammering of his own heart, glad he wasn't the only one so affected…caught so completely off-guard.  In those moments between her moving away from him though, so suddenly casual in her effort to hide a confusion mirroring his own sense, and the hurried pace she set as she fled to her quarters leaving him in this sudden quandary, he already knew it was too late.  

His brain might well have been made of mush for all the good it did in asserting sense over his emotions.  For one simple kiss, he was not ready to forsake the memory of Selene who would be forever burned upon his heart.  Nor could he lay to rest, completely, the callous murder of his son, an action that he would never be able to see the justice of.  

And as for Lucilla--the place she inhabited was one that would always be both sweet and bitter.  The pain she had caused him--no, to be fair, that they had caused each other--diminished with time, but the realization of it would never cease; like the scar marring his shoulder where the SPQR was tattooed--healed but never the same.

He lifted his head with measured weariness, sighing heavily, turning to walk down the opposite way toward the men's quarters, hoping he would be able to sleep on the soft bedding-cushions he was sure were used in the governor's palace. After nearly three years of slavery, and two months of reclining for the evening on nothing more than a woven pallet while traveling, it would be difficult to accustom himself to long forgotten luxuries he'd once taken for granted.  

Nemhyn.  Her kiss still burned across his lips, the feel of her body resting, warm and solid against his own.  He knew, and he didn't want to acknowledge the fact, that she had somehow managed to unintentionally captivate him, scratching out an uncertain place in his heart, somewhere between his wife and Lucilla.  Uncertain because he realized how little he truly knew of her, beyond what she or her mother had ever shared concerning their background, their discipline, their familial relations.  

If men dictated the means by which a woman might control her life--a fact which had either been overlooked, or more likely, overruled, in the _gens _Crescenii--women had the power to influence men through their actions, their words, their sentiments.  It was a much subtler means of control, but when achieved, was as equally binding as any open oath of fealty he'd ever sworn in defense of the Empire, or her rulers.  It was why men tried so hard to distance themselves from women, to build walls around their hearts, seek the host of their male companions in defense from women's soft voices, their gentle words, the graceful, comforting laughter.  Why wise men tried to keep women in places where they could be safe, controlled, honored but out of the way.  

At least that was what Selene had said to him one night, some years after she grown used to his free manner with her; the way he accepted, with an easy respect, her abilities tending a household and farm, making them unfailingly prosperous in his lengthy absences.  

Even without knowing Nemhyn as well as he had grown to know his wife, or Lucilla for that matter, he realized the dimensions of her nature, the essential core of her person were no less complex.  He sensed it the way one could anticipate the flavor of honeyed sweet cakes, or the delicate aroma of a fine wine--this spirit of bright conviction, whose passionate intensity in her own beliefs could inspire others with fortuitous purpose.

And that was dangerous, because she had no idea as to the effect that complexity could have on men who sought more from a woman than simply a wife and mother.  Who yearned for a partner able to assert her own opinions on matters of the world, share anecdotes about literature and the natural philosophies, be assured enough of her own person to stand against the inconstancies of the future.

Dangerous because women like Lucilla, his wife, or--as he suspected--Nemhyn, were equally unaware to the inevitable pain their loss could bring when they fell victim to the multitudes of ways death chose to wreak its destruction across the milieu of humanity.

And for that one reason alone, he would allow himself to fancy on this one night, lying on a cushioned mattress much too soft for the likes of one accustomed to the hardness of benches, the ungiving firmness of earth, what it might be to court a woman like the daughter of Antius and Maeve.  To be like a man blinded only by the joy of love's newfound possibilities, without having tasted from its pool of inevitable sorrows.  And with the coming of dawn's light bright in his eyes, he would think in this direction no more, blocking off this part of his mind, his heart, with the iron-discipline he had learned from years of locking away emotion beneath the tight fist of reserve.  

He had never been wise when it came to women.  It was no secret. He had heard it repeatedly through the years, first from his father, then Marcus Aurelius, and not a few of his own military comrades: nothing could make a man look more the fool than thinking he'd figured out the key to uncovering the intricacies of a woman's heart. 

 He turned over restlessly, smacking his head down in frustration upon the stiff roll of cushions serving as a pillow, thinking in irritation that whatever servant had stuffed the mattress, and prepared the pillow had gotten it all wrong.  The mattress needed to be stiff, the pillow softer.  

So he didn't know women.  He did know, despite the coolly calm sting of her parting words, Nemhyn, who nearly managed to capture his heart in that one brief brush of lips, was struggling on some level with this as well.  

On a broader scale, he was beginning to realize he didn't know Britannia either.  He'd expected the typical bunch of native provincials, the Roman legions with their usual melange of _auxilia_, but never, this far out from the center of the Queen of Cities, the variety of nationalities he was coming to realize, inhabited this island  

And he was going to serve with one of those foreign peoples, a unit conscripted from a nation he had so much as helped get banished from the territories of their own homeland--that Great Sea of Grass beyond the eastern half of Rome's dominion.  

Well, he'd never claimed to have a clue as to handling women, and he had yet to establish himself on an island far from the Empire he thought he'd known.  What he was sure of were horses, and that in itself was a solace…of sorts.  Horses were unpredictable, difficult to manage, and especially time-consuming to train as effective cavalry mounts, but for some reason, ever since he'd been a child, he had possessed a gift for working with the proud, independent beasts.  

He had fought in both the first and second Macromanni wars, coming into contact with the equally proud warriors of the steppe in those unpredictable moments determined by the odd twists of fate associated with battle.  He was even a little awed of their skill, the agility which they displayed from horseback.  But never so as to be intimidated by them.  He had led men in much the same way, and while he would not be commanding, nor--gods be thanked--fighting, he would be working with horses.  

And horses in his experience, had always offered healing in a way no human could, balm to soothe the heart, free a man's grieving, imprisoned soul.   

And if it so happened the Sarmatians discovered, by some misfault on his part, or another inquiring mind piecing together information that drew on his stated past with the Legions, his presence upon the Eastern front all those years ago, he would not deny the truth, except, perhaps, to safeguard the secret of the women who put their own lives at risk to save his: Nemhyn, Maeve, and yes, even Lucilla.  At least these wild-men from the steppe had a legitimate right to wish him dead--more so than any upstart of a murderous son who had gained his throne by patricide.  Nemhyn was right:  men did have odd values when it came to the rules of warfare.  But then, she was a woman, and one trained to an art meant to preserve lives.  She could hardly be expected to understand.

So, he knew horses, and that thought in itself was comfort enough to lull him into an eventual sleep.  

*************************************************************************

**_Nemhyn writes:_**

****

_When I was fifteen, I was married to a man triple my years in age, as experienced in the art of warfare, if such a thing can be called an art, as any disciplined soldier of Roma Mater, and rivaling my father in his dedication to serving the Empire in all of Her enlightened grandeur.  I never thought to question that decision--the arrangement had been made without my consent--it was a Roman marriage after all, and even for as unconventional as my family was seen to be, we had to conform at times, to the expectations of our class.  It was one thing for Cassius to fall in love and impregnate the daughter of a legionary prefect--a woman who, it needless to say, had been promised to some, "withered old prune of a Senator from Rome, whose breath smelled like goat dung, and who viewed a pretty young wife as nothing more than an ornament to brag about when sharing stories of everlasting virility with political cronies around a bout of wine drinking."   Imona always had an astute sense of descriptors for those whom she cared little about._

_The resulting scandal was...to say the least...interesting, a tale best revealed in later pages of this recounting. My point was simply that, had that daughter not been Imona, but myself, 'interesting' would not have been the apt word for describing the resulting outrage occurring over what could only have been viewed as my sullied virtue.  So, at fifteen, with my 'virtue' in tact, so to speak, I was married to a man nearly the age of my father.  Not a Latin, but a Celtic nobleman who held some rank amongst the allegiances of the Brigantes,  from a neighboring tribe of the Carvetii.  He had served Rome in some elite auxilia force for his due twenty-five years, and was now retired, looking to take up his place within civilian society.  For a man who started off with the overwhelmingly Celtic name of Lugovolos when he'd entered the ranks a quarter of a century before, he retired more Roman than the Latins themselves, taking on the proud bearing of a citizen, becoming the distinguished sounding Flavius Martius   His familial lands, a country estate bordering the territory of the Brigantes to the west, lands which my father wished to hold secure, prevent potential quarrels between my mother's people, and Flavius', were simply too tempting an offer for my father to pass on.  Insurgencies from the Caledonii north of the Wall were common enough, more troublesome than truly threatening, back then anyway.  But they served enough of a distraction for the units stationed along the forts of Hadrian's defense, that not taking advantage of an exchange such as my marriage, safeguarding the stability of the supposedly 'settled' tribes south of the Wall, would have been shortsighted and foolish. Neither of which my father had ever been accused.  _

_What Flavius got from the marriage, besides a woman barely out of her childhood, who had no more idea of running a household, or seeing to the servants' expenses, than she would have serving up a banquet feast for the Emperor himself; who could quote from Hippocrates, and recite Celsus like a saving prayer--talents hardly viewed as praiseworthy to decent Roman society--was my dowry, and a civic position within the vicus of Voreda, heading the tribal counsel as public treasurer, in service to the civitas Carvetiorum of Luguvalium.  What I remember of the man was that he could be as uncouth as a barracks keeper, had shoulders wider than some men can reach, and a face always high with color, like so many of the fair-haired peoples of the Celtic races.  Oh yes, I can't forget the girth—Cassius always teased that Atlas would have been hard-pressed to try and span it with his arms._

_You see, marriage, at least amongst the nobility of Roma Mater, is something of a business contract.  So long as each party fulfills their said duties, mine traditionally being wife and mother, supporter of my husband's public endeavors, exhibiting the values of fidelity and always, virtue, the marriage ran like a smoothly greased pulley.  My husband provided for, and led the family, with the wisdom accorded pater familias, honoring the ideals of the Imperial State.  Supposedly.  What the nobility often forgot to mention was the lack of enthusiasm Roma's virginal daughters, dreaming of their young, handsome, strapping husbands, who are rich and hold positions of great influence, had upon waking to the reality of their boring, stuffy, sometimes hideously perverse, and rather depraved old men wishing to install pretty, wholesome young Julias or Emilias within the household.  Hence, the numerous tales of infidelities, adulteries, children borne some months too early, or a sudden banishment to a deserted island; all of which filtered on the wagging tongues of rumor mongers who simply loved the gossip which came from our Empire's glorious capital.  Britannia herself didn't lack for such stories, as my own family can well attest._

_I could hardly have been called a docile child, but much to Mother's amazement, I didn't rage at having had my choice overlooked in light of my father's discretion. I think I was more shocked than anything else, although I well recall fearing the consequences of marriage on my autonomy.  Suddenly, cut off from my training, never allowed to ride out with my mum as I had been doing since my immersion into the art of Hippocrates, three years before. The concepts of love, marriage, children--I knew they applied to me as with every other girl born to the social circles of the military elite.  Yet, I had spent so many years, especially the last three, so removed from the usual leisure pursuits my fellow peers took interest in—their make-up, jewelry, clothes and the like. The injustice of being forced to conform to a vow I never expressed any wish to partake in, too absorbed in medical texts, trying to view the occasional illicit dissection Aristophanes and my mother might at times, perform late at night in the hospital at Corpistitium, swallowed my mind, fed dreams that had long gone beyond wanting to raise a pack of Stoic sons for Imperial might, marrying off virtuous daughters to civilize the tumultuous tribes ever threatening Roman borders.   I was so different from the other daughters of the high-ranking military commandants who came through, and at times settled for extended stays upon Britannia.  And those differences were painful, for adolescent girls, like no other age or group of people I can think of, can be horrendously mean to one another, for different, to the minds of those whose entire existence is based on the concept of privilege through bloodlines, spoiled from birth, and coddled into believing themselves meant to catered to for the whole of their waking hours, lends the definition of inferior. And I was inferior--for my half-blood, my appearance, for my desire to pursue what was considered, at best, a man's profession, and a working class profession at that. For the fact my mother provided no proper role model, indeed, encouraged my 'corruption', and my father, when he was at home, made no protest._

_They were not uneducated, those soft, pampered daughters of the Roman elite, but they were never encouraged to read anything more challenging than love poetry, maybe quote some Virgil, and if truly stretching their minds, Homer. Their existence was bound up in the world of privilege, dinner parties, and the boredom of lacking an honest pursuit, waiting until the next time their husbands or sons would come home from the front, or whatever current assignment they might be sent off to, provide diversion from the long hours of nothing they were forced to endure.   And men wonder why women's minds seem dull and soft.  Inferior._

_Mother learned a long time ago, to laugh at the ridiculous trivialities occupying the minds of her counterparts—the mothers of the daughters I now describe—and somehow manage to shame them in their insults, their horrified comments of disproval regarding, what they viewed, as her immodest conduct.  Alas, just like the serenity mother always seemed to possess, I never inherited her other social graces either. Instead, I learned from a fairly early age, to find what comfort I could within the confines of my father's study reading scrolls, tagging along with my brothers before they had all gone off to pursue their various futures, and on those rare occasions when we would visit my mother's relatives in Isirium Brigantium, I would be engaged in a world of vastly different proportions.  A world where women meshed with men as an intricate and essential part of rulership and business.  A woman was a mother, a wife, but a priestess too, or a lawgiver, a judge, running estates independent of their men-folk.  _

_May the Three Mothers be forever blessed. I entered marriage with a man in love with the Ideals of Roma Mater—her enlightened civilization, Her material luxuries, Her concept of peace and a prosperous stability which he knew could only benefit the security of the notoriously factious region of the Western Wall we inhabited, but he had no love for Her laws when it came to the relations of men, and their conduct over women.  Flavius, in spite of the superficial Roman trappings he donned in other aspects of his life, was a Celt to his very heart when it came to his idea of a wife, and he could not have been more delighted in the knowledge I brought with me, no little learning, and even better, a practical skill.   Once I began working independent of my mother, I actually enhanced his own status in the eyes of his tribe, along with the native Britons of the island.  _

_In three years with him, through one miscarriage, and another birth, brought to term—a son who died not a half a year after entering this world, in a winter during which a lung pleurisy ravaged the countryside and took many more lives than just my child's--I learned something about marriage.  That laughter, and a mutual respect can overcome the barriers of age, and the rebelliousness of a hoyden girl entering an arrangement she never considered.  Can even come to foster a fondness and affection, a feeling of warmth thinking that somehow, united in this peculiar establishment, I could envision being with this man for my life. And be happy in that knowledge.  He never tried to constrict my wish to further my learning of the Art, saw the benefit of me working amongst the peasantry, the daughter of a Roman official with classical training, providing care for a people who were otherwise viewed by most from my social class as a necessary source of labor to mine the ore, till the fields, or harvest the crops.  So had my mother established her reputation years ago when she'd married my father, and somehow cajoled or threatened (it was never made clear which) Aristophanes into teaching her what he knew of the medical texts, and his training from Alexandria.  _

_That was the whole of it, my three years of marriage, in which I learned to laugh, and thought I'd learned to love, at least with the fondness a dear friend might have for another.  I mourned Flavius when he died, sincerely and deeply, but never with the same overwhelming grief I remember from losing my--our--son; an infant who never even made it through his first year of life to his naming day.  I was widowed, and suddenly motherless, just short of my nineteenth winter, and at the age of twenty, I think—it has been so long now I can't recall the year exactly—I only know I met a man who was as aggrieved as I still often was, who came from a peoples who once shared a distant heritage with my mother's own people, riding across the plains of grass far to the East, and for a season, we came to share what men and women, in the spring of their youth, when they find in one another a mutual comfort, can.  For a season, we were each other's relief from sorrow, and the happiness of recovered laughter and mutual passion.  And after that season, we parted friends, knowing what we had been, and what we might, if the fancy should one day fall upon us, be again.  And that was it.  Sarmatians, freer even than Celts are said to be with their women, find the concept of tying women to a house, inhibiting their freedoms with the excuse of children, as mystifying as drinking wine with a meal rather than mares milk.  _

_It was joy, and it was healing.  But it wasn't love.  And I never thought to be bothered by that, thinking myself, in the second decade of my life, experienced in the manner of men and women, having known one man who had been father of my children, all of whom were dead; having known another man, who I might naively have claimed to perhaps, have been the desire of days…a lover, but not shocked with that sudden awareness, that rush of the senses that can render one usually so grounded to suddenly become a bumbling idiot.  _

_The arrows of Eros, they are not fatal, but they hit with seering accuracy.  I felt, by the time I had crossed the quarter century of my life, was now approaching the autumn when I might begin, in another ten years maybe, to lay aside, with some regret, but no real grief, the fertile years of bearing and take on the role of wise woman--I felt I had eluded the chaotic windfall that Eros is said to inflict.  That inanity people call love.  Frankly, I always called it moonstruck, just as I had when Cassius had first appealed to me and Flavius for help with hiding Imona away in the first year of our marriage—loving her so much he was willing to sacrifice his reputation upon this whim, dare all of Britannia's elite to keep them apart.  Love?  Madness._

_Until that kiss.  If the power of an action can be measured by its effect in changing long held beliefs regarding established views in the world, and what you are convinced you know of it, then I had been rendered an extremely weak adherent to any conviction.  As a Stoic, I would have failed completely.  Such a foolish child I was, even at six and twenty, well into adulthood, and long a fully grown woman.  _

_Age might be a factor reflecting wisdom, but not in matters of the heart.  And those were things I had never been adept with.  I do not know what he was thinking that night, either before we embraced, or after we parted.  I only know I had never wished to flee so quickly away to anywhere; it didn't matter, just to be away.  I was scared, not of him--this man who still had so much anger in him, felt himself so wronged by the world, or perhaps guilt for those he felt he had wronged.  No, I did not fear him, but myself. _

_I do not think I presume too much in claiming I am generally a practical woman, not given to flights of fancy, educated, and somewhat accomplished.  I had seen more of the world, at that time, than most people did in a lifetime, and managed to survive fairly harsh travel conditions in doing so.  Despite these consideration, I suddenly felt myself rendered speechless, with my heart fluttering about like a trapped thing in my breast, and my senses beyond comprehension.  And I had never intended that kiss to result in this at all.  _

_We did not see each other for some months after that encounter in the garden.  Which was a fortunate thing, because in that time away from him, I came to convince myself it had been a singular incident, a mood struck into existence by the atmosphere of flowers, fountains, and moonlight.  As ephemeral as a dream, and as a dream, had no basis in the truth of temporal continuity, so that by the time we were to meet again, some months later, we never mentioned it, either of us.  And by the time we had reached a rapport with one another so that we might well have broached the subject of what had happened that night, in a summer enclosure brimming with mint scented breezes and a dancing fountain, winter, before anyone had a chance to realize it, suddenly fell upon the north of Britannia in a terror of fire, a raid of screaming men, and shedding blood.  _

_Indeed, my mother's Sight had never been false, and to the dismay of us all, it was beginning to unfold with more calamitous adversity than any of us might have imagined.  Hardly circumstances for pursuing matters of love, a time of war, but then the heart follows its own mind, even when we do not wish to consciously grant it such sway upon our thoughts and actions. _


	4. Rememberance

Alright...finally, and I apologize once again for the span of time between postings.  I am so avidly trying to get this story written, do the reading for the background of it, and attempting to stay up with my schoolwork, and job, that I can only get the next bits, and pieces up every few months.  

But alas...I can finally say it...THE SARMATIANS HAVE ARRIVED!!!!!!  Cyanus, Xanathes, and Zaraxes are my own creation; Maximus/Lucius, Nemhyn, Maeve, Antius, Cassius, Imona, and many others to come in proceeding bits...and don't think I'm done with Lucilla, Qunitus, Virius Lupus, Severus, Albinus, and other key players of the period.  Do I really need to say which ones belong to Dreamworks???

I'll stop babbling, but just to give some time-line perspective for chapter 5, 6, and 7 (which are written, but not typed, nor edited yet), we get taken up through a week past Samhain (first week of November) in Arbeia, before the next book.  This could take a while.  

My inspiration for Batrades came from a mythical hero of the Sarmatian peoples named Batradz, (I know, the name didn't change all that much) who Arthurian scholars believe, may have contributed some elements to the myth of King Arthur (as the existence of Lucius Artorius Castus might well have).  Particularly, such themes as the Lady of the Lake, sword Excalibur (originally known as Caliburn) set in a stone, the throwing of the sword back into the water upon the hero's death, etc.  

Based upon an obscure fact cited by the historian Cassius Dio:

"Marcus had been campaigning across the Danube [circa 175CE] against the Sarmatians, a tribe famous for their armoured cavalry and proving extremely troublesome to the frontier....However, the proclamation in Syria and Egypt of Avidius Cassius as emperor in Marcus' place caused him to break off his campaign, which had been going well--from his point of view.  In haste, he made terms with the enemy, including the supply of 8,000 Sarmatian cavalry for enrollment in the Roman army.  _Of these, 5,500 were sent to Britain.  They were doubtless no more enthusiatstic about this than other units raised compulsorily and transferred to another part of the Roman world....Nevertheless, on arrival they represented a substantial reinforcement to the auxiliary forces in Britain."  _

            --taken from:  A History of Roman Britain (1993), by Peter Salway.   

            --This passage, combined with that gorgeous first track off the second _Gladiator_ CD (_Duduk of the North_), made me think of something like the Native American 'trail of tears', only Sarmatian style, traveling across the distances of the Empire on Roman roads, ending up in Britain.

I'll stop wasting your time now...read on...****

**Chapter 4:  Remberance**

**--**_5 days past the mid-summer festival, a week short of the month, July, named in memory of Julius Caesar: 182CE._

 The years had slipped away so quickly.  He could scarcely recall--in these quiet hours, the sun's rays, weak and obscured by a thick covering of cloud and mist, creeping over the gentle, rolling hills and hidden moors of purple-glossed heather and fern, glinting off the dozens of small lakes bejeweling the landscape--the way of her smile, their secret, shared laughter.  His eyes were on the burgeoning sky, sleet grey and heavy with rain falling too readily upon this emerald-imbued land of fen and dale, covered with dense forests of oak and ash to the north and east, rising to jagged, forbidding highlands in the west.  Highlands whose most heaven piercing summits remained encased in snow, even in mid-summer.  A vague memory came to him, as he led his party south and inland from the northern demarkation of Hadrian's Wall, how she used to laugh at him mockingly, taunting him with her barbs as they rode among their herds under the vast, never-ending umbrella of wide-open sky.  A sky sapphire clear, almost to burning in the heat of mid-day; strewn with the gods' wealth of diamonds--thousands of stars scintillating against the velvet black of midnight's domain.

She had always been merciless in her teasing**.  **_Batrades, a pregnant cow could have danced in the circle of fires with more grace than you last night.  Were you trying to enact the great battle of the gods, or mimic a lamed soldier?_Her ringing, tinkling laughter always followed her words, clear and joyous, like finger cymbals****clapped in time to one of the many spirited dances of his peoples.

His mount, a solid, heavily muscled gelding with a long back and powerful haunches--the type used more often for hauling the carts of the legions rather than for riding--nickered in protest, tossing his head to let his rider, whose mind was wandering down avenues no sensible beast like a horse would allow, know the man was pulling back on the reigns too tightly for the likes of a velvet-fine mouth.  Once more, he heard Tabiti's scoffing giggle. _And you call yourself a horseman, Batrades.  A horseman who holds his reigns with the ease of a child on his first pony, frightened of falling at any step faster than a walk.  _Then, from amidst the billowing swathes of her headdress she would peer at him with that flippant mockery, the color of her eyes only rivaled by the azure shades of the heavens.  **__**

****

The headdress had been a gift, a pledge of his loyalty when he discovered she was pregnant with his child. Its rare vibrancy of saffrongreen silk, obtained from merchants of the Jaded Cities far to the East, had, woven into its fabric, golden coins, each piece embossed painstakingly with a silver doe leaping away from a lion. 

Her headdress was the only thing of color left behind on that winter day, over seven years ago.  Trammeled by the horses of the Romans, it was ground into the slush of mud and snow, stained with dried blood, and torn to fragments.  So frenzied by gold-lust and battle-fury, the hoard of wealth the squadron of Roman troops believed was in the winter encampment of yurts his tribe inhabited along the banks of the Danuvis, the legionaires hadn't paid heed to the finery of silken veils hiding the lovely tresses of Tabiti's white-blond hair.

The Sarmati were no strangers to such sentiments, but even they, the barbarians of the steppe, laid to rest their craving for Roman riches, the furious joys of warfare, when the snows blanketed the ice-stilled waters of the Mother Danu.

He still saw it, with the painful memory of his mind's eye, the saffron and green swathes ground into the bloodied snow and ash remaining from the raid.  Had she been less a warrior, her arrows finding their mark with less deadly precision galloping from over 100 paces away on the back of her mare, gladly disabusing the Roman raiding party she would be easy spoils to add to their prison lines, the surviving soldiers may well have spared her.  Had she been less intent on trying to save their wagons and their wealth from the invaders, given over to cowering like those pale slips of delicate finery Romans considered women, Tabiti might still have been riding at his side, now, as he imagined her, admonishing him sharply.  

_What has become of our people, Batrades.  Why have you allowed yourself, your people--the Children of Apa--to be used this way.  There is no honor in this._

_And, as always_, he thought with mournful despair, remembering to loosen his grip on the reigns with a moments regret for his faithful, dependable Bela,_ she would have been right._

They were but a half-a-days ride from Cattaractonium, would be entering between the twin turrets of her watchtowers by the noon-meal.  And unless he sent a messenger on ahead to warn Tirus, the fort prefect, he and his men would be paying service to the gods of latrines for the rest of the year, coming back unannounced.

Cresting a small rise on the cobble-paved road running south, Batrades overlooked an expanse of wooded glen and grazing sheep, a ribbon of a small stream, an offshoot of the Fosse, weaving its way east towards Eboracum.  He signaled the cohort of men he lead to a halt, all 500 mounted, scale-clad warriors, their beaten trappings, and that of the horses' armor, resounding into the vale below with the metallic cacophony caused by their progress.

"Cyanus," he called back, none too far, for his second ranked officer.  "Have Zaraxes ride on ahead of us, alert the prefect to our arrival.  The rest of the company should be arriving to the fort by sun's height with the last supply wagons coming in by evening.  Have him tell Tirus I will be prepared to debrief him on the morrow."

Cyanus nodded, turning his horse to seek out Zaraxes from the ranks of men following, scratched at a fresh looking gash along his cheek where his helmet rubbed irritatingly.  A helmet, Batrades noticed, which was amazingly lustrous, molded of steel alloy, and inlaid with rearing horses shimmering of gold:  something for a parade ceremony and not the monotonous action of the march--at odds with the rather dented, worn look of his scaled cuirass.  

"Cyanus, where did you come by that helmet.  It's not the one you usually wear as part of your battle gear."

With a typical wolfish grin, the same one he used when ever he spoke of Romans' fighting capabilities--or from Cyanus' point of view--their inabilities, his commandant explained, full of relish, "One of those fool-hardy centurions stationed along the Wall with us, my lord.  Felt he was so favored by his gods that his skills with the sword from horseback could compare to that of a Royal Iazygee."

Batrades tried to hold to a stern look of disproval, but Cyanus was so completely pleased with himself, the prince could only muster a half-hearted frown before breaking into a guffaw, eagline features relaxing into a flash of white teeth.  "Keep the helmet, Cyanus, but I ask that you replace it with your battle one when we come to the fort."

Cyanus seemed like he might protest, but catching the glimmer of warning in Batrades' amber-hued eyes, the other man thought better.  Instead, Cyanus merely shrugged, signaling his horse with a light touch of heel and reign, to seek Zarexes amongst the ranks, but not before he muttered with his ever-present intransigence, "Is there a difference from one helm or the other?  One hasn't seen battle in nearly a decade, the other is purely ceremonial, making them both equally useless."

At that, Cyanus galloped off, knowing Batrades would ignore his remark, though the prince's eyes reflected the barren grief of truth, if only for a moment. 

The sound of hoof-beats setting out the rhythm of a gallop came from behind him, as another of his scale-clad warriors—Zaraxes presumably—sped by on a quick, light-boned steed.  He saluted Batrades, never interrupting the lightening pace of his horse, descending, via the road, into the valley below.  When the messenger, scant minutes later, barely a speck in the distance, crossed the bridge at the tributary, Bartrades raised a gauntleted hand.  It was the only signal necessary to communicate back through the detail of mounted warriors, pack horses, covered wagons pulled by oxen, the various servants necessary for maintaining the supplies of the _Alae Sarmatiam Equitum_, it was time to continue their slow progress over the distance to Cattaractonium.

Cyanus, having resumed his position behind Batrades in the column of men and horses, would not be reprimanded for his fractious attitude.  He never was. From long years in battle, the wrenching defeat at the hands of the Romans, through the turmoil of coming across half-a-continent, attempting to settle upon this far shore of mist and rain, Batrades knew his officer's loyalty was unquestioning.  With the exception of Xanathes, there were few others the prince trusted so completely.  

Cyanus was not alone in voicing abounding contempt for his Roman counterparts.  It was a sentiment shared by many of the Sarmati _auxilia_, Batrades included.  In those first years when Batrades' unit had still been stationed at the prestigious Wall fort of Cilurnum, and the then governor of Britiannia, Quintus Antistius Adventus, harbored notions of a Roman legionaire commanding the notoriously fractious _auxilia_ of steppe warriors, the Sarmatians made it almost a habit to frighten, intimidate, and eventually burst any newly assigned trooper's delusion of leading the company of Royal Iazygees.  The chosen officers were mostly foolish young men, appointed as tribunes to the prefect of Cilurnum, selected from the elite ranks of citizens, sons of nameless senators.  Trumped up pansies, they were more concerned with their prestige in forwarding careers in a city as far from the shores of Britannia as the Jaded Cities of the East were from the steppe.  They viewed their time on the island as temporary, served with a lofty sense of superiority over both the native Islander and _auxilia _recruit, and had no sense of honor nor of command.  It took only one season of warfare before the legionary commanders of Britannia's standing military learned the futility of giving a less than an experienced officer the position of _prefectus alae_ to the _Sarmatiam Equitum_.  

That too, was a memory which burned.  Batrades would never again be granted the ultimate command of his men.  He, who had once led armies against the almighty Empire, the prince of a people viewed as barbarians by the inhabitants of the more settled lands south of the Danube, could hardly be entrusted to not incite rebellion amongst the 2500 of his fellow tribesmen who had made the journey to this far shore nearly a decade ago.  Adventus had thought himself generous in allowing Batrades to even be a first-rank decurion: a position having no meaning to the Sarmatian peoples.  The Children of Apa understood princes, chieftains, nobles and warriors; not this tangled hierarchy of generals, centurions, prefects, legionaires, _auxilia _and the like. Thus, Batrades knew that Cyanus' defiance arose, not from disobedience, but from the same source as his undying loyalty--the remembered glory of days when they had flown across the steppe at the whim of their steeds, with only the wind and the sun to accompany their wandering, nomadic freedom.

Batrades watched the passing landscape, mindlessly swaying to the rhythm his mount set at a slow walk, the gelding in no more seeming hurry to return to the fort than his master.  At the bridge, the soldiers fell into a pattern of two abreast without a word, crossing with uninterrupted procession.  

On the other side of the tributary, the horsemen arranged ranks once more, to the more typical three abroad, taking up the full width of the road. He felt the gradual change in the atmosphere, a certain alertness spreading back through the men, as they rode by an expanse of broad leafed, thick trunked oaks and maples towering toward sky-father, bordering the river, and sheltering the long column of his company. Thick clusters of trees, similar to other numerous, gallant species, were common on the island, even away from the plethora of watercourses and rivulets dotting the greenery of sloping hills which fell away into wooded glens.  

Trees.  So many of them.

That was something else which had taken time to grow used to in that first year after arriving to Britannia. On the steppe, they were poor, twisted briars and shrubs, thriving only along the river-beds, their scant branches and bare minimum of leaves drawing what sustenance they could from the streams meandering over the Great Sea of Grass, mere cracks in the barren earth and coarse grass.

To the Britons, as to his own people, trees were a sacred connection spanning the distance from earth to sky.  Yet, venerated or not, riding through a forested track with at least 500 men , wagons, and pack beasts, along the main road toward Cattaractonium, trees meant one thing--potential ambush.  Not that it was common for maraudering bands of Calendonii to breach the Wall and raid this far south, but it was not unheard of.  And as the people of the steppe knew from long generations of running with their herds upon the backs of their horses, light and fleet across the plains, hunting at intervals, bedding down for the night with their wagon trains, migrating with the seasons, there was only one price paid for a wandering mind lulled into complacency by peacefully milling animals, and a seemingly undisturbed horizon. 

Death.

Zaraexes, having ridden out ahead of the detail at a near gallop, would be at the fort a good two hours before Batrades and the rest of his men in the lead _turmae_.  Glancing up at the sky contemptuously, Batrades felt the fine, misting rain beginning to fall for a countless time since the early morning.  Cyanus' comment rang through his thoughts again, making his mood reflect the seeming character of the clouds--heavy grey, hanging over the horizon where the valley, once more, crept up into a series of hills dotted with wild sprigs of oleander and sedge, their gentle, rounded tops cloaked behind a veil of fog.  

On an island he would never view as his home, where the rains came in this gradual, lingering drizzle of mist and incessant damp, soaking through the heaviest felt cloak, rusting armor, corroding weapons, and rotting the grain stores the Sarmatians' horses depended on, Batrades had long ago become resigned to Britannia's weather.  Remembering the gusty spontaneity of thunder, wind and lightening that could rage upon the vast steppe, passing to an open sky and the blessed light of the sun once more, the prince thought bitterly of how he'd long ago, come to accept his constant struggle against Tirus, the small-minded prefect of Cattaractonium, with similar resignation.  In his efforts to procure the shipping funds necessary for decent brood mares from overseas and initiate a breeding operation, Batrades, over the years, had learned Tirus was the type of man who would never advance any further than his current standing in the army.  He  lacked imagination and innovation, and resenting his position, Tirus' own dissatisfaction came out in the petty cruelty he derived from lording his authority over Batrades and his men, finding every opportunity for inhibiting the commencement of the breeding endeavor Antius Crescens had proposed to the Sarmati prince all those years ago. 

Cyanus behind him, was saying something to another man of the _turmae_, most likely his closest friend, Xanathes, concerning muddy roads and hoof thrush.  Just beyond the voice of his officer, however, was Tabiti's, once more ringing upon the wind carried over the hills, her pristine tones echoing, _there is no honor in this, Batrades._

Since coming to this island at the edge of the world, he had done what he could to keep his men from going soft, from forgetting their legacy of freedom when they had flown across the Great Sea of Grass, charging into battle with a single-minded, flamboyant courage.  The negotiations of peace demanded by the Imperial ruler, Marcus Aurelius, specified their service in the Roman military as elite cavalrymen.  In that first year of their service to Rome, when a force of Caledonii, some 2000 strong, had breached the Antonine border, and were ravaging lands and villages, advancing south to the Wall of Hadrian, Batrades hadn't given another thought to the fact his unit of 500 had been summoned to quell the invasion.  He and his men, were, first and foremost, warriors, and eager to keep their skills for battle-craft sharp. 

With one company of legionary soldiers kept in reserve, 1000 of the Thracian infantry, Batrades' cavalry, and 500 mounted soldiers from the _Alae Petriana_, the guardians of the Roman held lands to the south of the Wall hoped to circumscribe the threat posed by the invading northern barbarians. 

Bela was ascending the slight inclination of a grassy slope so that Batrades leaned forward in the saddle, hoping to ease the effort of his unfaltering mount, lifting his face to feel the enshrouding swirls of mist through which he led his men, coat his face with fine droplets. A bead of water dripped from the edge of his helm, to land on his cheek, under the corner of his eye, and roll like a tear into the black hair of his closely shaved beard.

It had been raining that day, too.  Not this gentle summer rain, but the blustery, bone-chilling sort, that was common to the barren, windswept hills of Britannia's north country in the months just short of winter.  On that plain, just north of Hadrian's Wall, the Roman ranks covered the bases of two imposing, lichen-spread gradations of rocky earth, standing impassive, like the nemetons one found throughout the island.Even rows of soldiers, their rectangular shields the size of men,  planted in the ground, the Roman forces formed a barricade of metal and humanity, the crests of the legionary commanders' helmets brilliant red in the grey pallor of that late autumn day, riding with grim purpose amongst their ranks, shouting down the lines to the stony-faced prefects of the individual squadrons assembled across the hills. 

In the shallow plain below, the much less even assortment of Caledonii, though no less abundant in numbers, shouted as one roaring crescendo of voices, incomprehensible words whose meaning needed only emotion to be communicated, the curses they would hold true to, their hatred of the Eagle. To the Sarmati, composing one of the two units of 500 heavily armored horses and riders, positioned at the wings of foot soldiers, just above the last row of Thracian _auxilia _dispersed over the Roman-occupied foothills, the charge of the northern tribesmen looked like the rapid encroachment of wild-fire from the steppe. The mirage of tattooed, blue-ochered faces, spiked hair, and brawny warriors wielding long swords and thrusting spears, dispersed in a rumbling advancement of brightly colored chariots pulled by shaggy mountain ponies.  Over the uneven ground of the barren windswept hills, where the land plateauxed before rising abruptly, the legions of the Eagle awaited them with a stillness eerie for its very lack of action.  

When the light-framed chariots could go no further up the incline, the nobles of the Caledonii  band who had been leading the charge leapt out of their war vehicles, still raging with the exhilaration of the charge, carried by the momentum of their own two feet, toward the Roman lines, followed by their fellow warriors, spears hungry for the pliable give of flesh, swords seeking the ready give of bone.  

And finally, the first rank of Thracians, shields now at the ready, aimed their pilum, watching the graceful spears arch with deadly accuracy through the air, advancing by steps; the second rank following the first, then the third row, and on.  Until the Calendonii, amidst the screams of those not quick enough, or blessed with sufficient luck to avoid the hail of Roman spears, crashed into the barricade of Roman might with a physical, deafening sound.  

Tribesmen and _auxilia_ engaged in struggle of life and death.  The dance of the sword, the quick action of the spear, the screams of the wounded and the dying gurgle of men fell upon the dispassionate silence which ruled the deserted, windswept foothills of the north country.  The Sarmatian horse lords eagerly anticipated the command to charge down into the chaos of battle, and join their comrades in the intimate play of death.

The signal to charge did not come for a long time, however, so that when the blare of the trumpet at last hailed the _catarphactari _to sweep down the sides of the hills, there was only a remnant of survivors from the Caledonian forces left.  No one considered that one wing of the cavalry, 500 men, would never leave their place, save for the current prefect of the unit.  The unfortunate commander charged singly down the hill, only to abort his advance mid-descent, before realizing he was not being followed. Pulling his horse furiously around, the nameless and forgotten legionaire continued to rage at the motionless tiers of mounted Sarmatians, frozen statues, horses and men, held by the hard, crumbled earth of the hill.  

Batrades: veteran of many battles, was renowned by his people for his skill in  warcraft, as any prince ought to be, and no stranger to the massacre men partook in, seeking to glorify themselves in the face of the gods, and the eyes of the tribes.  

Batrades: passive witness to the numerous bodies of northern barbarians already littering the field, blood soaking into the hewn soil, watched as the descending fury of the _Petriana_, following the command to advance from the opposite slope, wreaked havoc upon the few survivors, now attempting to fall back to their chariots, beaten and defeated, but refusing to surrender.  

He could not bring himself to lead his men in such an utter slaughter.  

Batrades remembered Cyanus hissing something at him in agitated fury, the prince responding, surprised by his adamant disgust at the waste men and horse before them on the plain:  _No, we will not charge.  We are warriors, not murderers!  There is no honor in this, being used to kill off the remaining few of an enemy who straggle away like beaten dogs, not having had the fortune of seeking death upon the field._

It was not long before even those last of the Calendonii—Batrades saw, at the front of his array of horsemen, located above the plain--fell like stalks of wheat to the sickle, impaled or hacked by the lances and long-swords of the _Petriana's _well-disciplined horsemen, so that limbs and guts spilled everywhere.  It was a sight to sicken the most seasoned of warriors, and many of Batrades' company, at first having balked at the insurbordinance of their prince, now began to murmur prayers for the fallen, ashamed their fellow soldiers, not Sarmati, but still brothers of the horse, could allow themselves to be used in such a brutal and pointless display of might and destruction.

Emerging from a wooded copse, Batrades kicked his staid Bela into a slow jog, the long tail of his company behind him, still feeling the turbulent emotions from that day six years before.  He heard the dull thud of hooves on the road as a number of his mounted warriors, untold, scattered back to the disjointed segments of men, horses and carts, ready guardians to the serpentine line of the cohort winding its way from out of the foothills, traversing between gentler slopes blanketed by a thick coverage of fern, springy heather, and wild poppies.

About to cross a trickle of a valley stream, Batrades paused his horse when a woman and her child appeared from a ring of oak trees banking a small clearing of meadowsweet, pale pink in the grey of the morning's mist.  Both the woman and her daughter were dark and swarthy, clothed in tanned leather of the Old Ones who had supposedly inhabited this land long before the Celtic people.

Without a second thought, he removed a brooch, one of many, lining his cloak.  A rich piece of work, it was heavy gold and silver, shaped into a circle, with a weaving of interlinked branches at its circumference.  The size of his palm, he handed it to the woman in deference to her blessing the safe progress of his company coming back from the Wall, where they had been assigned as garrison reinforcements during the most recent outbreak of violence beyond the Hadrianic frontier.   

She took it with a bow of her own, as graceful as a queen, raising her head to study him from out of night colored eyes, her features handsome and prominent, her look enigmatic.  "The earth feeds once more, Lord of Horses, on the blood of men.  Only now, the blood is sustained by the fallen of the Eagles, and the men of the highlands beyond the Wall thirst for more.  They have been subdued, but not beaten, while the forces of the Romans dry up like rivers in a season of drought.  How much longer will you hold out on your refusal to fight, while the people of this land watch their crops burn, and see their villages pillaged, their animals slaughtered, and winter of famine and death upon the horizon of the future."

Cyanus, from where he sat on his horse behind, answered before his prince could.  "The Wall of Hadrian still holds, Lady, and the incursions have been contained to the lands of the Selgovae and the Votadini.  For now the worries of the Britons are unfounded, and we have done the duty asked of us, to guard the Wall and communicate messages between the forts of the frontier."  

Her chin raised perceptibility, a challenge to the question she voiced next, her eyes never wavering from Batrades' face, though it was Cyanus who had addressed her.  "Yet, the island's people who inhabit the lands claimed by the Eagle continue to look north with wary eyes, and should the full host of the Caledonii ever fall this far south, beyond the Wall, Prince of Horses, what then.  Will the standards of the dragon fly once more, or will you leave us to suffer the fate of those bound for the bosom of the Mother?"

He replied with unhesitating solemnity.  "On that day, should it ever come when the Calendonii do invade this far south, Lady, the _dracconis_ shall fly again, and we will fight for all the peoples of this island as though they were our own."  He could feel Cyanus' eyes burning into his back as he gave the signal once more to continue, could hear the words spoken often enough in the past, arising from the memory of bitter defeat on the frozen waters of the Danube all those years ago.  

_Should such a day ever come, when the northern tribes do invade this far south, we would do better for our honor to join them in overthrowing our oppressors, than by fighting on the side of those who are most our enemy.    _

Ah, the truth of those words stung, for Batrades, better even than his most trusted officers, knew what would come when they reached the fort.  

Another hour, maybe, for they were on a good road now, the long tail of supply wagons, men, and horses skirting another string of trees shading the tributary, heading still further east, then south again.  Through the wooded lowlands of the moors, enveloped by soft rounded hills, cresting a slight rise upon which an ancient circle of weathered stone pillars crowned the summit--a testimony to the hallowed places of the island--down another gradual dip, to approach the incline of a lower hill, where a grove of sacred oaks, budding summer's white blossoms of  mistletoe,overlooked the valley, was a broad river plain.  There  would lie Cattaractonium's fort and _vicus_.  Nestled, snug likea bird's egg amongst a wide stretch of hilly country to the west, and the offshoot of the Ousse, meandering on its mindless way further east, the entire settlement bordered the flat pastures of the Sarmati horses, the training grounds where the cavalry still drilled.__

And then, Batrades, as head decurion of the first _turmae_, would have to inform Tirus of the immense loss of men along the Antonine front--the three _auxilia_ cohorts decimated, the two companies of the _VI Victrix_, the destruction of three Roman held garrisons.  And Tirus, clenching at the dark stubble of his chin where he normally had a beard, would rage at the barbarism of the Calendonii, forgetting, over the years, it was from Rome whence the command was issued to call away various units from the Wall, in support of what the Empire considered more important endeavors on Continent. Thus, the Antonine front was unguarded, the forts north of the Wall of Hadrian severely under-manned, and the great Wall itself, living on the trace of a breath, her garrisons and civilian inhabitants, thankful for each day that passed when no word came of fresh incursions to threaten the northern most border of the Empire.  

Tirus would then proceed to degrade Batrades, and the _Alae Sarmatium Equitum Primae_, for their utter uselessness.  One of five other units of _catarphactarii_ stationed along the northern front, Batrades' unit had been considered the head cavalry wing of the Sarmatian companies…until that day, six years before, when they had fallen into disgrace for insubordination to their commanding officers.  

The result of a deal long ago worked out between Antius Crescens and the Sarmatian prince, in those days after the massacre of Caledonii beyond the Wall of Hadrian, had saved Batrades' men from being disarmed, their unit disbanded, and forced into the lowly ranks of infantry, for his misconduct on the field of battle.  The prince would have been spared such consequences, being forced to suffer only execution.  While death was not an unwelcome consequence considering what had become of his state, and the fortunes of the men he led, he could not abandon the loyalty of his brothers--they who had chosen to follow him to this exile.  

The avenues a man's mind could wander down, reliving that night in Eboracum, the first time he'd met the legate of the _VI Victrix_.  Batrades had argued vehemently for the right of his men to not have their weapons confiscated, their horses repossessed by the State, given to other cavalry units about the province.  In his stilted Latin, still unfamiliar with the language in that first year after the treaty banishing them upon this far island was formed, he'd tried to impart to the legate of the _Victrix_, Antius Crescens, the shame and injustice of such a punishment brought upon his men.  The utter disadvantage they would be left at, consigned to the ranks of lowly infantry.

The general, a seasoned man of well-known repute, admired by many in the ranks of legions, and respected as much for his incorruptibility as for his fair treatment of the soldiers, listened with a keen eye, and patient ear to the details of the battle.  Far different than the picture portrayed by his centurion, Marcus Velibius, who'd led the first company of the VI, the legionary reinforcements, and commanded the skirmish on the deserted, barren hills north of the Wall.

_We exist on borrowed time here, my lord prince, _Antius admitted grimly_, _when Batrades had concluded his story._ Those skirmishes beyond the north Wall are mere diversions--small incursions of men, testing our strength at occasional intervals to see how closely we guard our borders.  Gadging the strength of the Empire and Her men, seeing how well our defenses continue to be maintained._

He'd studied the Sarmati prince with dark, shadowed eyes, going on to say, _Your cousins along the Danube continue to put up quite a resistance, causing our honored Marcus Aurelius to send for more troops across the Empire, including those in Britannia.  He is, planning a major excursion into your territories north of the great river at some point, and I wish him the gods' fortune for this success, but we, in Britannia, have weakened.  Not perceptibly, perhaps, but...we have weakened.  _

_So send to your emperor for your own reinforcements, _Batrades remembered answering, carelessly.

_I did_, Antius had asserted strongly, his usual equanimity dropped for the moment in lew of the sudden anger in his voice.  _He sent you and your men--all 2500 of you...and the first time you are asked to fight, you refuse to follow the order to charge!_

Batrades, from across the general's desk, stood up, his own impassioned tones echoing throughout the _tabularium.  There was no honor in how we were used!_

_Honor or not, _Antius said severely_, _not in the least intimidated by the formidable temper of the man before him, whose blazing amber eyes had made blooded warriors cower in fear in the heat of battle._ You swore an oath to his Imperial Majesty to serve the interests of the Eagle!  If you do not follow the treaty conditions as they were agreed to, you and I both know the consequences, Prince of the Sarmati!_

Batrades had looked away then, from the general's unwavering eyes boring into his soul, walking over to the window looking out into the hall of a colonnaded passageway.  An adequate response to the other man's statement was not to be found, however, in the coronal flickering of the light from the torches beyond the _tabularium_ any easier than in the turmoil of his own heart.  

He heard the Roman legate sigh heavily, his voice when he at last spoke, full of honest regret.  _I know the anger of your people, being sent here, how they must view this as some sort of exile from your homeland.  _

Batrades' words were full of an anguish he hadn't intended to let through, so transparent.  _Some of my men chose to take their lives with their own swords rather than be sent to a place beyond the edge of the world, where my people say the land of dead is located._

_Sit down for a moment more, Prince of the Iazygee, and I will tell you something.  _Batrades, for lack of anything else to do, walking back from the window, did as he was told without protest._  I will allow this refusal to fight, not because I am acceding to your notions of honor and how you think the rules of warfare ought to be followed.  No, because your presence, that of your men, makes the others of the legion and the auxilia uncomfortable.  There have been concerns voiced by many of the prefects along the Wall, and my centurions, of the wisdom in allowing such an uncivilized people who are said to collect the scalps of their enemies, and drink from the skulls of their slain, killing indiscriminately--_

At which, the prince had surged up from his seat once more, raging_, Lies!  Those are lies!  At least about the indiscriminate killing.  Are your men such cowards that they must transpose the shame of their own actions upon those who you consider barbarians.   I have seen Romans who bear the insignia of the Eagles kill a child of the tribes with equal relish he would a blooded warrior._

He thought the older man shocked into silence by the enraged outburst for a moment, until, unbelievably, he heard the general begin to chuckle.  The older man, observing the Sarmatian bristling, motioned for the younger man to sit once, in a calming gesture, explaining, _I did not say I give credence to such tales, my lord Batrades.  Only that your reputation has made my men nervous, enough so that I have had to give much thought as to how to reconcile your companies of the dragon, and those of the Eagle.  _

_And, _was the prince's abbreviated inquiry. 

_I believe_, the general conceded, _active combat may not be the wisest choice at the moment.  It would be a waste however, for your men simply to be put to road building and fort repair, and your people's expertise with the horse is...how can I say this...renowned.  _

_What do you propose, General,_ Batrades asked, his curiosity pricked, though he could well suspect where this was going.

Antius, leaned forward in his chair, a bright eagerness suddenly alight in his eyes, caught by the flames of the torches.  _You will breed horses, Prince of the Sarmati.  You will breed horses, then you will train them.  You have seen the sorry ponies inherent to this isle--_

_Sorry, indeed_, the prince interjected with scorn.  _We were not allowed to bring any substantial portion of brood mares.  The officers in charge of monitoring our transport overland said they would incite our stallions into agitation too often once we were on board the ships.  So our herds are mostly geldings, and our few stallions are of pure blood...the Horses of Heaven.  But you cannot expect us to taint them with those...mutated excuses of horseflesh._

_A problem, _the general had responded, a droll smile across his broad, expansive visage_, that I am sure will occupy you and your men for the next few years:  procuring your desired mares, choosing your bloodlines, and the like._

_It takes more than a horse to make a horse-lord, General, _Batrades said bluntly_.  Romans do not use their cavalry the way we do.  Your cavalry fight on the flanks of your foot soldiers; ours is the main brunt of our force.  _

_You see, _Antius pointed out, almost merrily_, you're already considering staffing problems.  You'll obviously require a Master of Horse that has had experience with both methods of fighting; the weapons; armor and equipment involved;  the tactics… a man who knows horses as intimately as your people do._

For the first time, Batrades laughed, a sound full of bitter amusement_.  If you can find such a man, General, then so be it, but we will have final approval in deciding if he meets our standards or not._

_I wouldn't have it any other way, _Antius had agreed, surprisingly without qualms.

_We will breed the horses, and train them, but be minded, the work you speak of is a task for generations, _the prince iterated_._

_Let it be, then, _the general had said with sudden avowment, his prior eagerness dropping away_.  If it is for the protection of this isle, let it be, _the older man seemed to whisper, more to himself than to Batrades.

Then, with a quick, pointed look at the Sarmatian prince, he stated with unbending resolve, _Remember, my prince.  On the day this island stands under the threat of Wall breach, I will not hesitate to call upon your original oath to the Empire.  _

_On that day_, Batrades had replied, readying to take his leave, _should that day ever arrive_, _the Calendonii may, by then, have become a formidable enough enemy to fight...honorably._

_That day, I fear, is not so far off, _were the general's words, spoken at the prince's retreating back, exiting the _tabularium_.  Said in that same whisper as before, the prince was never sure if he had been meant to hear them, or not.

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The tale that was imparted to the public from that arrangement, painted the _Alae Sarmatium Equitum Primae_ as being thoroughly reprimanded.  Only because of the generosity of the General Crescens, the upstanding citizens of Eboracum said, or rather the eccentricity of the man himself, and his unconventional means of administering justice, argued his head centurions, was the unit of Batrades and his 500 soldiers spared what ought to have been their due punishment for insubordination on the field of battle.  Reassigned from the reputable Wall fort of Cilurnum, they were posted to a little known _auxilia_ station further south, along the main route to Eboracum—consigned to live out the rest of their days in obscurity, passing to the darkness of the forgotten, the nameless and rememberless.

Cattaractonium, the Place of the Waterfalls.  Named so because of the way the land, extending south from the edge of the _vicus,_ where the drainage pipes of the town spewed their contents into the river, followed an abruptly banking gradient, causing the slow flow of the water to form the gradual ripples of a cataract that became a rushing fall descending , not too steeply, to a smooth coursing once more.  And there, where the land bordering the river's transit sloped down as well, a wide, flat basin expanded on to the south, hedging the riverbank of tangled beech and weeping willow.  A plain full of lush green grass, fed by the floods of the spring, browning towards late summer and fall, running over acres, just to the boundary of more gently rising foothills, and deep forests.  As ideal a place as any for supporting the vast herds of the Sarmati horses, numbering nearly 1000.  

Or, to Batrades' mind, over 6 years ago, it had seemed an ideal place.  Ideal for supporting their herds, and initiating the endeavor for breeding more horses once the necessary funds for the mares were obtained.  Now, as he stared across the last valley, at the summit where he could just make out the twin turrets of the military fort's northern gate, spires rising up to poke the veiling mist sweeping down from the sky, he could only sigh with that familiar resignation, patting Bela's long, arching neck absently.  

Just as he could see, without having to look, the winding tail of men and horses, wagons and supplies stretching down into the dell behind him, his mind's eye pictured the winding streets of Cattaractonium's _vicus_ just beyond his view, on the other side of the summit in the distance.  The way the winding streets branching out from the square would be bustling with the daily influx of rural dwellers; townspeople, undeterred by the rain, disappearing now and again amongst the varied homes, businesses, and civic edifices that lined the spider web of streets.  

He curled his lip in scorn, thinking disdainfully on how these people hid behind their walls, their towns, their buildings of timber and wood, never knowing the freedom he and his people once had.  The Sarmati refused to fight for the Romans; they refused to be assimilated into the Roman way of functioning as a cavalry unit.  He knew the other companies of his fellow tribesmen from the Roxalani and the Quadi, still stationed up along the Wall, one having been incorporated into the same _Alae Petriana_ which had fought on that fateful day six years before, held strong for the most part.  Their commanders still swore unspoken allegiance to the prince by following his example, proving their usefulness to the Roman legion instead, by serving as messengers to the Official Post, or guarding shipments of foodstuffs and material items that came through the riverports of Arbeia and Maia, to be taken inland and distributed as appropriate.

Already he could feel the suffocation of the fort walls closing in, the stubborn refusal of Tirus to approve military funds needed for replacing or upgrading equipment for his men and horses, forcing the Sarmatians to resort to their personal coffers simply to by new leather for saddles, replace iron of blunted lances, or having to settle for the lesser grade alloy of bronze for helmets and armor.  Under such circumstances, the brood-mares remained a dream for another generation, perhaps.

_You refuse to fight for Rome.  You refuse to accept the commanders Rome chooses for your unit.  Tell me, then, why Rome should fund your cavalry, not to mention some notion of a deluded general that the governor will ever approve the finances needed for your breeding endeavor. _Words Batrades had grown familiar with over the years.  Always said with a sneer, the light of oppressive power shining forth from the eyes of small-minded men like Tirus.

On that one count, Tirus was indeed correct.  Antius had met with as much frustration attempting to persuade each new governor to support the ambitious horse-breeding endeavor he'd proposed six years ago, as Batrades had trying to accommodate the line of incompetent men appointed to his _alae _as Master of Horse.  They either knew nothing of fighting from horseback,  in the Sarmatian fashion, or worse, nothing, at all, of horses.  And no legionaire given the prefectship of the _Alae Sarmatium Equitum _would command a unit of steppe warriors who took a horse-trainer from their own ranks of Sarmati instead of the legions.  Needless to say, while the Roman chain of command operating on Britannia had long ago, given up trying to appoint any man as a _prefectus alae_, the occasional assignments to Master of Horse still filtered through every few months.  

The longest had lasted a year before Cyanus and Xanathes had caught the recruit drunkenly trying to race a yearling colt, newly purchased from personal finances of Batrades, to the point of its wind breaking.  

The fact still remained, though--the population of their steeds was dwindling, the precious herd of the Sarmati chargers.  The Horses of Heaven, whose  light-limbered grace, fine dense bones, proudly arched, straight-lined necks, beautiful intelligent features of head and eye, their endurance and speed, they way their coats shimmered with metallic bloom in the rare summer sun, could be found no where else in the Western Empire.  Least of all on this island.  

Batrades, feeling a moment's despair before kicking Bela into a jog once more, suffered the withering in himself he always had when coming into the proximity of Cattaractonium.  Horse and rider began to descend the rise they were on, the rider sensing the progress of his company as the unit fell into its monotonous march with the smooth ease of long familiarity and routine. 

The Horses of Heaven would die here in the long years just as his men would, growing stale and stagnant with each passing season.  It was a gradual death, like an illness that progressed over time, this withering he sensed in himself, could see in the eyes of his fellow tribesmen.  Forced into this artificial captivity, they would rot like a treasure in a forgotten catacomb, knowing they would never again drink the wind of the steppe, riding free with their wandering herds.

A gust blew down, out of the west, bringing with it the scent of mountain heights and the freshness of spring clover, raising the hairs of Bela's mane, so that Batrades patted them back into place.  To his amazement, the clouds cleared for a moment, and sunlight caught the droplets of moisture in the air, emblazoning the very atmosphere to a watery gold.  His efforts to smooth Bela's mane ceased, cocking his head, listening for Tabiti's voice upon the rustle of leaves, lit to brilliant green from their high branches in the short span of streaming sunlight.  

_Change is upon the wind, Batrades.  Change lies upon the wind, and the dracconis shall ride forth again._


	5. An Encounter of Exiles

Here it is, Chapter 5:  a week late, but it's here.  A few things:  Dubris is the Latin word for Dover (who hasn't heard of the "white cliffs of Dover"); My understanding of Roman military structure is still quite faint:  but it's getting there (squished between all the other reading I need to do for school)…in very general terms, the _auxilia _were soldiers drafted from the non-citizen inhabitants of the Roman Empire as opposed to soldiers of the legions.  Upon discharge (if you were lucky enough to live that long—25 years for _auxilia_), many soldiers became citizens themselves.  _Alae _is a term, meaning--in my scant knowledge of Latin-- "wing"…cavalry acted as the wing of the infantry (foot soldiers), not as the main fighting force.  They flanked the enemy in battle, supporting the strength of the legions.  Most units that were strictly horse-units (such as the Sarmatians stationed in Britannia), were _auxilia_.  Legions usually had their own associated cavalry units, but they did not act as separate fighting forces under their own command, or so I've read thus far.  Beyond that, the only other thing you might want to know is _Cervesa_—a word for a type of ale-drink common to the Celtic tribes of the region around Belgium and Gaul.  It sounded like a good word for a fort password;);)

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**Chapter 5:  An Encounter of Exiles**

_Early July, 182 CE_

            He'd come out of Cripplegate, the legionary military fort associated with Londinium, having taken to the road once more, nearly a week ago.  Traveling with a vexallation unit of the XX carrying dispatches from Londinium to be delivered to Albinus, Maximus had left the detachment of eighty men and their centurion two days before.  Their road lay further east, toward Eboracum, then north again, to Cilurnum and the Wall of Hadrian. His route, while northward as well, headed more west toward Cattaractonium--the Place of the Falls.  They'd been a hearty group of men, and the centurion, a Julius Valens by name, welcomed the 'Spanish auxiliary' simply as one more face amongst their varied company.  The ex-gladiator kept to himself, as was his wont, riding his borrowed horse in a contented silence. He joined in at times, with the shared camaraderie of the soldiers, adding a riotous comment now and again when the humorous exchanges bordered on risqué, but otherwise passively observed the landscape change from a terrain of flat, cultivated fields rich with the summer's coming bounty of wheat, corn, and barley, to less regular vistas of wooded copses, shallow river valleys edged with impenetrable growths of oak and willow, forests that grew thicker the further north they traveled, and by the forth day out from Londinium, the just visible outline of foothills which guarded the territory of Britannia's north country.  The rain had been intermittent throughout the past week, the fog in morning hiding the rounded slopes rising up from the glens through which he passed, now solo, on the road to Cattaractonium.  

            Finally, on this, the seventh day of his journey, his eighth upon the island en total, did he just begin to make out the watchtowers of the military fort's southern palisade, the gated compound situated on a treeless bluff beyond the semi-organized sprawl of the civilian _vicus_. In the flat plain leveling away from the town's southern and eastern perimeter, the deceptively torpid-gray waters of the Ousse's tributary paralleled fields of ripening hay and grain, russet and gold, even in the morning's watery light. As his horse trotted the last mile, up the gradual rise to the town, Maximus saw a group of field-hands, maybe four or five men working amongst their precious crops, halt their presently occupying tasks--thrashing weeds, monitoring for pest infestations--to approach the border of the stone-paved road.  Theirs was a silent scrutiny as Maximus continued at the slow jog he held his horse to, nodding in scant greeting to the entire group.  One of the laborers, leaning on the wooden staff of his hoe, raised his hand in voiceless answer, after shaking water off the wide brim of his hat.  In the moment before the field-worker replaced the visored head-covering, the ex-gladiator glimpsed a face, weathered by years and the elements of the outdoors, grizzled beard, and matted white hair.  The eyes in the hoary face were what held him, one discolored, milky white and presumably sightless; the other dark and obscured, a shadowed cavity absorbing all things observed in the outer world. Maximus found himself turning back in his saddle in momentary distraction, balanced to the rhythm of his mount, wondering what he found so familiar in the stranger's paradoxically colored orbs.  

            The image of those eyes stayed imprinted on his mind, long after he'd turned to face front once more crossing the brink of Cattaractonium's outlying edifices. The sounds of the town's morning activity engulfed his senses, and the vague details of a dream he was just beginning to recall--Marcus Aurelius and a god.  

            What piecemeal revelation his memory pressed to uncover drained away completely upon encountering the guard of Cattaraconium's southern way station. A brisk word of introduction, showing the man his papers, and dismounting so the horse lent to him could be stabled, ready for the journey back to Londinium when the next group of transitory units headed south, Maximus suddenly found himself caught up amongst the spider's web of Cattaractonium's winding roads.  Lined with shops, the _vicus'_ avenues branched out from the main market square at the center into lanes filled with one story flats or two story dwellings of whitewashed granite walls, and timber-lattice. Despite the shouts of passers-by in the square, the squealing of a disgruntled child prevented from testing the flavor of water puddled into one of the wide cracks filled with the wash of rain gushing off the tiled roofs surrounding the plaza, Maximus couldn't help puzzling over the guard's grunt of acknowledgment when he handed the conscription papers back.  _Master of 'orse, eh?  Well, at leas' you seem like you know somethin' of ridin' the bloody beasts.  Be th' Sarmati tha' will be makin' tha' decision in th' end, though_, finishing with a rather nasty chuckle that revealed a mouth of rotting gums and missing teeth. 

            Maximus hadn't bothered to reply, simply following a conglomerate of town dwellers donned in woolen cloaks against the damp chill and rain, meandering, as he was amongst the shops and booths filling the town square.  As the hour passed into late morning, and his exploring brought him to a line of food vendors at the western side of the market, the ex-gladiator found his blaseity transforming to a reluctant appreciation for the town.  He wasn't sure what impression he'd been expecting, but the inhabitants seemed, for the most part, a prosperous mixture of merchants and artisans:  brick-sellers displaying their wares from flat-faced shops, numerous tile-merchants, evidenced by the healthy number of oxen-pulled carts heading into town, some to deliver their wares for go-between contractors, others heading for the military fort that overlooked the town to the north and east.   A crowd of women, obviously from the country side, their heads veiled in the way of freed-peasants, attired in simple, but well-made gowns of tight-knit wool, hauled baskets of tinder-wood, produce or chicken eggs through the jostling, animated wave of humanity.  

            From just this first casual appraisal, Maximus saw the Britons held true to their native taste for color.  A parade of dark blues, saffrons, dyed reds and greens offered a feast for the eyes against the drab, overcast tones of the sky. Bright plaid dalmatics covered the tunics of the men, fastened with bronze brooches at the shoulder, the women reflecting the same eclectic hues with shawls, tied about the shoulders or wrapped around wastes.  He couldn't keep the corner of his mouth from quirking up, thinking on how Rome's elite stationed upon this distant isle, would view such clothing style as garish and excessive--especially the women's shawls.  He wondered how many of the troopers in the legions attempted to maintain their code of civilized dress after a first winter here, disdaining to cover their legs in the more sensible trousers of the native inhabitants, under the tunica and trappings of a soldier of Rome.  

            To the gods of small favors, Maximus sent his grateful thoughts that soldiers of the Empire's _auxilia _units were not expected to follow such unwritten formalities of traditional military uniform, feeling the suede of his own trews snug around his legs as he walked.  Regardless, even as a young legionaire, it had taken Maximus only one day into his first winter along the Germanic front to scrap his own 'civilized proprieties' and see the sense behind trousers.  And Romans thought they had nothing to learn from barbarian tribes.

             Gazing without much interest at the variety of meats, fruits and vegetables gathered and supplied by the local countryside and her inhabitants, he roamed his way mindlessly amidst the spread of stalls: fresh cherries set up in baskets, tantalizing red; apples picked from the outlaying orchards, newly slaughtered goose and duck, venison haunches hanging by leather sinew from racks; smoked bacon and dried pork strips roasting over a bed of coals behind the counter of a meat vendor; fresh goat's milk displayed in pitchers, for those willing to pay or barter; parsnips and cabbage, rinsed clean in the waters of the river, their green, moist leaves meant for salads or soups.  Cattaractonium's inhabitants ate well, at least in the season of summer's abundance.  

Against the heavy clouds chasing across the horizon, an amphitheater rose above a melange of edifices--the western quarter of the town given over to the temples of various deities, a more humble, rectangular configuration of a civic building on a natural rise of earth, red tiled roofs dripping water from their gutters into the street.  The dwellers of Cattaractonium apparently appreciated their parade of military displays, or simply the cultural refinements of the theater itself.  

            With seemingly aimless purpose, he wandered by a tanner's stall, declining with a polite shake of his head, to inspect closer the assortment of leather goods offered:  a covering for some new belt or shoulder fringe, perhaps; fine rawhide that could be molded and treated to the shape of a hardened cuirass, of the type worn by soldiers when doing local duty around the fort.  

            More enticing was the neighboring booth with a spread of stuffed meats and cheeses, the portly man from behind the counter acknowledging Maximus' interest with an amicable, "Hai, soldier.  You look as though you've been a time on the road.  Some sausage, perhaps a leg of beef, fresh curds of sheep's milk to fortify you for the rest of your way?"

            Maximus belatedly realized the man was addressing him, still caught up in studying the lofty semi-circular outlines of the amphitheater just visible to the west.

            His attention drawn to the meat-seller, the Spaniard answered with equal affability, "I'm afraid I'm here to stay.  At least for a time," the thought suddenly occurring to him, that it must have seemed highly unusual for a soldier to be observed amongst the crowd a few hours short of the mid-day meal, when most of the men composing Cattaractonium's garrison would have been on duty in the fort, or out in the countryside.

            "Ah, a new posting, then," the vendor inquired, as the ex-gladiator approached the counter for a closer inspection of the foodstuffs displayed.  

            Maximus pointed to a handful of fat-broiled strips of dried meat, seasoned with local herbs, and the curds sitting in a bowl on the counter.  "Something along those lines," he replied offhandedly, another thought entering his mind as he watched the vendor wrap the meat in a piece of leather cloth.  "You wouldn't happen to know where a man might get himself a decent drink in this place, would you?"

            With a ribald twinkle in this eye, a chuckle that shook the vendor's vast girth, the man collected some curds into a wooden cup, covering the contents with another piece of leather-cloth, saying, "You've been on road that long, eh soldier?  Most usually wait until after they've seen their commanding officer, but then all you young ones have needs that should be seen to, I'm sure.  Myself," he stated with a satisfied grin and a pat to his belly, "I've been happily married now for the last five years, and haven't needed to seek such comfort that comes in the form of the gentler sex to keep the bed warm...or the stomach full, for that matter."

            The man's comments might have bordered on the lewd, but the ex-gladiator, handing the vendor two silver coins for the food, found himself grinning reflexively to the seller's observances.  

            "But your lot," the meat-vendor continued, taking the coin with a nod of thanks, "you're not allowed to marry, are you?  Seems a sad state of affairs when an Empire carrying the influence Rome does, restricts what is only right and natural for young men stationed at the hinterlands of civilized life."  Maximus' only response was a doubtful raise of eyebrows, when the substantially built vendor, giving the younger man a conspiring look, added, "Mind you, that never kept the legion's commanders from pairing off, I've heard tell, but that's what privilege wins for those in power, no?"

            "Indeed," Maximus agreed, trying to get back to the subject at hand.  "About the--"

            The vendor, in his ambling manner, continued as though he hadn't heard Maximus.  "Good number of the army lads, here, have taken up with local women, though, in as honest a manner as they're allowed.  Not a bad thing, finding a release for pent up urges," the beefy man stated with some sympathetic understanding, nodding knowingly, "but when the novelty wears off, some, every good lad wishes for a wife eventually.  Now, I can think of--,"

            At which point, to Maximus' unstated relief, a woman's voice broke into vendor's prattling, scolding, but tempered with amusement.  "By the Three Mothers Cael, the poor man asked a simple question, and you go on at him like a lonely, old widow."  She emerged from the back entrance of their shop, stringing up another two hocks, of what looked to be pork loins, her forearms bloodied up to her elbows, not done with her railing as she gave Cael, the meat vendor, an exasperated look, hearing Cael mutter apologetically to Maximus, "Levala, my wife."

            "He does this to every recruit come new to Catterick," Levala remarked, using the British derivative of fort's Roman name, her eyes warming as she took in Maximus' form with undisguised admiration.  "Trying to find out if you've a woman in mind for a wife, or if you're in the market for one, seeing if you might be appropriate for his sister or not."

            Having recovered himself, not willing to be outspoken in the presence of his wife, Cael interjected, "Well it can't hurt, fishing for some harmless information.  He's certainly well-made enough for Lina's tastes.  Maybe if she saw this one, she would get over that bloody infatuation for the potter...," going on about how a well brought up soldier of the Empire would be better for the infamously mentioned Lina than some, "damned artist who crafts amphorae and pitchers with his hands all day."

            While her husband went off on his diatribe, Levala proffered a cleanly wiped hand for Maximus to shake in greeting, stating, "Alas, my husband believes a two year courtship and a three year marriage to be an infatuation," throwing Cael an affectionate look of forbearance.  "So as you've met my husband, already, and now myself, and have been introduced indirectly to Lina and her own husband, what name do you go by, soldier?"

            "Lucius," Maximus answered, almost without thought, shaking her hand with an apprehensive smile.  He couldn't help reflecting that the two made a fitting couple--Levala's thick flaxen hair bound in a simple plait, her broad cheeks and the sweetness of her smile matching her husband's easy joviality.  Buxom and expansive of hip as Cael was of girth, she stood a hair taller than her husband, who said, with a somewhat sullen resignation, "I can still keep praying Lina might, one day, come to her senses, can't I," giving Maximus a look of feigned searching.

            The Spaniard couldn't help laughing at that.  "Indeed, it sounds like you still might keep praying, but I'll have to decline my availability, at the moment.  More than my sense of personal honor, it's my sense of preservation which keeps me from pursuing women who already have husbands.  They generally end up on the wrong end of a sword, if you catch my meaning."

            Levala, adding her own hearty mirth, stated with the same essence of her husband's raucous humor, "Oh, I think we catch your meaning, well enough, dear Lucius--wise, indeed, to keep you pursuits of love limited to the...available women of the world. Now, if it's a drink, you're still seeking at this hour of the morning, there's a fine ale-house--

            "Not ale," Maximus broke in.  "I've never developed a taste for it.  Too strong, too bitter.  Cider is more to my liking."

            "Truly," the woman said, blinking, almost stumbling on the word, she and Cael exchanging puzzled frowns.  

                After a moment of considering silence, Cael, giving the new-come soldier a reckoning glance, and an "Ah," said, "so your tastes tend toward the sweeter."  He waved in response to a late morning's greeting shouted from a passer-by in the square before continuing.  "Now, there's only one place in our humble town that deals in the drink of apples.  Owned by a man of the name, Carogennes.  But you should know, young Lucius, its doors are not open to the...well...," breaking off in consternation with a hopeless motion of his hand toward the ex-gladiator.

            Levala, who had always been the more forth-with of the two, explained in light of her husband's discomfort, "What my husband means, Lucius, is that while you certainly look capable enough of holding your own against most common troopers, the _auxilia_ stationed here--those that frequent Carogennes' tavern--have come to consider it their personal territory, one could say.  They are tribesmen from the east--

            "The Sarmatians," Maximus stated flatly, seeing Levala's brow furrow in surprise before she went on.

            "Aye, so you're familiar with them, then."  He shrugged, noncommittal.  "Then you should now, they are not welcome to most of the more traditional Roman recruits, whether you're a citizen or no," Levala finished with a worried light in her eyes.

            "I've been informed of that," Maximus said, not without some gratitude in his voice for her and her husband's apparent concern.  Not to be deterred, however, he prodded, insistent, "Cider is still my preferred drink, and I would consider it the gesture of a friend if you were to simply explain the way to this Carogennes' tavern."

            With a reluctant sigh, despite the protesting expression on her husband's face, the stout wife of the meat seller listed off a series of streets winding their way between blocks of _insulae_ to the southwestern quarter of the town, near the proximity of the amphitheater, in a hidden sounding alley.  "Really, when you come upon the area, you'll not be able to miss it.  There's a two-story home owned by an iron-smithy--you'll smell the furnace draft from his operation.  The tavern will be just around the corner, at the end of the street. A sign hangs from a rod of wood projecting off the overhang, advertising the _Finest Ladies in Britannia_."

            Maximus couldn't keep the faint smirk from his face even as he eyed her incredulously.  

            Misinterpreting his gaze, Cael's wife said with wry humor, "Aye, lad, no doubt you'll be wanting more than the cider, to be sure, " to which her husband simply chuckled.  "Just beware," she advised, "the Sarmati do not take kindly to their...recreational pursuits being shared with the likes of you Romans.  And Carogennes is more than willing to comply."

            Maximus, nodding acknowledgment, said, "I thank you, Lady, and your husband for your kindness and your concern," inwardly thinking with rueful amusement, he must have been playing the part of the fresh provincial conscript convincingly.  He hadn't been  addressed as _lad_ since his days as a standard bearer under Lucius Verus, long ago on the Eastern front.  He hardly looked the age, anymore, but all the better if these people thought him some untried hotblood seeking the pleasures of light entertainment amongst the civic inhabitants of Cattaractonium, before facing the challenges of his new posting.  Unlikely as the possibility might be, it decreased with that much more assurance, the potential of anyone piecing together something of the truth behind his actual background.

            About to take his leave, returning to the mutable crowd of Cattarctonium's marketplace, he was detained a moment longer by Cael remarking, "You're awfully subdued about your task here.  Most of you green-bloods are usually spilling over with enthusiasm for your new assignments."

            Elliptical to the last, the Spaniard only replied grimly, "From the sounds of it, I'll be lucky if I still have a posting come sundown.  Good day to each of you," giving a brisk, abbreviated bow, merging amongst a group of well-attired men dressed after the fashion of the Empire's citizens: long, belted tunicas, and boots, their towels revealing the fact they were on their way to the leisure of the local baths.  Despite the outward desire to exhibit the clothing tastes of the more 'civilized gentry', the men's cloaks still reflected the necessity of keeping off the rain, which had begun to fall once more with typical monotony, forcing the rest of the plaza's browsing crowd to seek shelter under the veranda's provided by the shop-keepers, long familiar with the unpredictability of Britannia's weather patterns.

            Levala and Cael stood side by side, for some moments more before returning to the days' tasks, watching as the retreating form of the newcomer became obscured by a series of donkey-driven carts, hauling stacks of untreated wool to the dyers.  On the other side of the square, Cael, observing a woman with a basket of vegetables barter with the seller of goat's milk, said to his wife, "Newest cavalry master for the _Alae_, do you suppose?"

            His wife snorted, apparently long ago coming to that conclusion.  "No need wager on whether you're right or wrong with  Lina's husband's new stock of ewes, dearest Cael.  The fact you've guessed correctly works counter to you're wishing Italicus weren't so prosperous in all his business ventures."

            Making a sign of averrment with his fingers, Cael asserted, "Gods now I would never wish the man ill-fortune.  But maybe, if...you know...he weren't so wealthy for a few years, she might fall out of infatuation with him," moving off to the stand by the counter as the woman with the basket of vegetables made her way toward his stall from across the square.  

            The response he'd been waiting for came, as his wife, with a furious expulsion of breath that might have rivaled an enraged bull for magnitude, threw up her arms in frustration, her clout to his back knocking him off balance slightly, so that he stumbled into the counter, trying to hide his laughter.  "Stick to selling our meat and cheese, Cael, or I may send you on your way, and take to searching for a new husband myself."

            "You know you would never be able to turn me out like that.  You've been infatuated with me for far too long," to which his wife, though he couldn't see her as she was standing behind him, heard her _hurumph_ once again with amazing volume.  The sound was loud enough that his new arrived customer--the woman on the other side of the booth, basket at her hip-- gave each of them a cautious look; an expression which disappeared in no time, drawn in by the friendly jabber of Cael selling his food items, telling of the freshest recruit to the fort at Cattaractonium.

**************************************************************************

            As Cael's wife had described, Carogennes' tavern was down a narrow street lined with the featureless, white-washed walls of various buildings--mostly urban dwellings--dwarfed by the shadows of the looming amphitheater, closer here to the western boundaries of the settlement.  Some women stood on a corner, one holding a load of wash, the other, a child on her hip, both dressed smartly, but simply in sensible woolen dresses, bare shoulders covered by bright plaid shawls.  There was a definite chill here, even in high summer, in no way lessened by the gray, billowing clouds over-head that were shedding their moisture for the countless time since the morning.  He pulled his own hood back up over his head with a frown, brief as he noticed, suddenly, the odor of smelted iron-ore hung heavily at this particular juncture of the winding streets.

            True to Levala's words, there stood the two-flat house with shutters open to the sounds of the town below, on the corner leading down a narrower alley.  He moved off in that direction, trying not to breath too deeply as the rancid, metallic odor mingled with a slightly more fetid one, explained by the echo of a gushing drain rattling under the pavement stones.  _Sewage run off_, he minded absently with instinctive distaste.  Well, at least the amenities of Roman plumbing weren't limited to the provincial capital, only.

            Down the alley and around one last bend, careful to pick his way over scraps of litter dirtying the narrow street, was a never more appropriate spot for a cider-house.  A splintered wooden sign hung above a roughshod timber door, swinging forlorn in the occasional gust that blew down the lane.  _The Finest Ladies in Britannia_.  Except that the engraver had gotten his grammar somewhat askew, so the sign actually read _The Finest **Lady** in Britannia_; a fact which made him chortle, pondering if the women contended for the singular spot, or if they were even literate enough to recognize the error.  Probably not.

            About to open the door with a push of his hand, the deep, muffled rumblings of masculine laughter reached his ears, giving him pause.  In that instant, a flood of uncertainty overcame him, feeling his inner vision give way to the golden ambiance of his Elysium, readying to enter the outer courtyard of his villa, as it had appeared in the landscape of his afterlife.  Had that been a vision or a dream--transformation to another reality, or the fabrication of an unconscious mind and battered body.  The hand in front of him, though, was no longer bloodied with the ravages of battle, illumed by the vibrancy of that immaterial world, but clean and solid, and, to his irritation, shaking slightly, with all the physicality of skin, bone, and mortality.  He balled his fingers into a fist, trying to overcome this sense of unsteadying dualism when a woman's voice shattered his thoughts, loud in a world where the noises of human habitation, the incessant dull tapping of rain on roof shingles, had been drowned by internal vision.   

"Soldier!"  And he blinked, starting, looking about himself to focus on his immediate surroundings--the dim alley, the tavern doorway sheltered by its shoddy overhang.  

            The woman who had addressed him was one of the two he'd passed not so long ago in the alley holding the basket of linens.  She exclaimed, not unkindly, but with obvious irritation, "If you're going to stand there and debate about the indecency of coming into a place like this, then you'd best not do it in the rain."

            She moved past him, into the cover of the overhang, shaking her shawl off her head so it fell onto her shoulders, revealing a fresh, pleasant face, apple-checked, and accented by laughing brown eyes.  

            "Do you work here?" The words slipped out before he could stop them.

            She took no offense, laughing as she placed the basket of laundry on her other hip, flipping heavy black braids over her shoulders.  "Not in the way you might wish, soldier," she replied in heavily accented Latin.  "At least not anymore," shouldering the heavy timber door open, indicating with a motion of her head, "Come, the ladies are off duty during the day, and I see you've been to the food vendor's already," noticing the wrap of leather-cloth he held in his hands, leftovers from Cael's booth.  "But so far as I know, a drink never hurt anyone while they quibbled over their morals," she finished, standing aside to hold the door as he stepped through the low entrance, past her.  "Besides," she went on in smoky tones, her eyes grazing over him, taking in the width of shoulders, the level brows, and strong curve of chin and cheek, "you're one of those rare instances I rather wish I'd held off on becoming an honest woman as yet."

            He simply coughed with a sudden, self-conscious effacement at her unabashed compliment, looking about himself to the dim interior of plaster walls, heavy wooden tables set along the room's perimeter and center.  Benches supplied the seating for crowds that, no doubt, wandered in towards the draw of the day.  Oil lamps hung from the ceiling or were mounted on the timber beams, providing the only lighting for the large room, where, at the back, was a long stone-carved counter upon which casks of the renowned cider stood.  Another door opened to a back storage room leading to a cellar, and across from the end of the long bar, a stairwell wound up to the second level.  Most assuredly where 'Britannia's Finest Ladies' served their cliental each night.

            At this hour, the cliental was sure to be scarce, except for those who could afford to take their leisure in the late morning hour, which, the group of four men, looking to be from the civilian population, appeared to be doing, seated at one of the back corner tables.  Obviously regulars, one of the four waved in familiar fashion to the laundress, shouting from his place in playful banter, "Ah, Cecilia, you returned to us!  We thought you'd left for good, using that excuse to go retrieve your clean linens. It seems you've retrieved someone else along the way, who doesn't look to resemble your intended.  Had I known you were still taking customers--," breaking off with a painful grunt when one of his friends kicked him from underneath the table.

            The ex-gladiator heard the friend say, "You just wish she'd been the one to choose you," and Cecilia laugh in her wonderfully exuberant way once again.  She pointed out a table to Maximus, along the opposite wall, indicating she would be with him in a moment, turning back to reply to the jovial mood of the men.  

            Not paying attention to what she said to the convivial group, realizing remissively, he wouldn't have understood the converse in any case, Cecilia having switched to the native British tongue, the ex-gladiator was more intent on locating a specific table other than the one she'd directed him to.

            And there, his eyes fell upon it, still situated along the opposite wall, but further down, oriented to preserve privacy and optimize space for those choosing to sit around the magnificent slab of maple wood, the rich, dark sorrel smooth and glinting in the flickering of the lamps. Surrounded by carved seats made of finest oak, the table had its own brazier situated next to a shuttered window.  It was to that table he chose to seat himself, settling into an oaken chair for comfort, prepared to wait until the Sarmati arrived and herald the inevitable confrontation.  

            Hearing another peel of laughter from Cecilia, the barmaid swayed gracefully away from the seemingly enamored group of men, depositing her laundry behind the bar before walking over to where Maximus was sitting.

            "Soldier," she began, a playful light in her dancing eyes, "you are indeed new to these parts, aren't you?"

            He nodded from his place across the smooth, dark wood of the table, surprised to find his chair accommodated the shape of man's seated weight better than any bench might.  

            "Not a man of many words, soldier?"

            Leaning back, not really wishing to engage in mindless chatter, guessing where her converse was headed, in any case, he only said, "That depends on what I'm asked."

            Cecilia, not in the least deterred by his curt manner, propped herself on the table, letting her feet dangle, catching his eye with an impish glint and a smile.  He wondered if he'd heard the men correctly when they'd shouted something regarding Cecilia and her intended; her mannerisms still resonated the flirtatious overtones of a tavern wench, the way she allowed her skirt to hike up, showing a flash of slim ankles, and lovely white calf muscles.  "A name, soldier," she demanded in a light voice.

            Her shawl had slipped off one shoulder as she leaned forward, closer to him, trying to catch his succinct response: "Lucius," his eyes riveted to the cider-house's entrance, not paying the least attention to the revealing plump shoulder, nor the gentle line of her neck and throat when she leaned back, not attempting to replace the corner of the plaid that had fallen to the crook of her forearm.

            "Well, Lucius," she advised in a saucy voice, "I might suggest you move to any other table but this one.  You see, Carongennes, the owner, reserves this place for a group of...rather honored guests.  Ones, I might add, he is extremely reluctant to offend, and do not take kindly to having their chosen table invaded by a Roman."

            Her warning was, no doubt, well-meant, and when he turned his eyes back to her face, she was still smiling widely, pearly teeth and crimson lips curved into a reflection her flirtatious manner.  The facade fell away however, when his only response was another brusque, "Is the owner here during the day?"

            Cecilia's smooth brow knit in puzzlement, for the first time thrown off by this man's obvious lack of regard for her attentions. "Not this week.  Business took him down to Dubris overseeing an import of fresh casks of cider, and to haggle out some complication with the taxes.  Otherwise, you'd never have been allowed within an arm's length of this table.  There has been word the _auxilia_ Carogennes' guests belong to have been sighted to the north, however," a strange urgency in her voice.  "They usually have a habit of coming in during mid-day, despite the fort commander's disproval.  Like I said--they don't take kindly to having their place--

            "Right. Invaded by a Roman.  Believe me, I've been warned of that amply since  arriving here this morning."  At some point, he pondered inwardly, this being called a _Roman_ was going to have to stop. 

            Cecilia was frowning still, thrown off and beginning to look distinctly uncomfortable in the ambiance of his curt regard of her attentions.  Well, he figured, when one's odds fell in such a way that they were certainly not in his favor, one had to make do with what allies were offered.  

            Thus, 'Lucius' smiling openly for the first time since meeting the tavern girl, gave a sudden cheeky wink and, catching her off-guard, reached for her hand.  "You can help me actually," the mischievous twinkle she saw in his grey eyes quelling whatever initial protest was about to cross her pursed lips.  "Nothing of great import--just bring me a mug of your cider, and when I signal for you, have ready...say...another three."

            He could see she wasn't convinced entirely, opening her mouth to object, and silenced once more when he slipped her a brilliant gold disc bearing, of all things, the head of Commodus on one side.  Not understanding the brief sardonic gleam in his eyes, Cecilia studied the coin in the lamplight for a moment.  Then, slipping it into a purse at her side, she simply nodded her unspoken agreement.  Reluctance was still evident in the tension lines around those lovely red lips when she hopped off the table's dark surface to make her way to the bar's counter.

            She returned with a flagon of brimming, fizzing gilt liquid that smelled of autumnal apples and sweet orchards, and before making her way back to the bar, she turned to consider the newcome stranger with a perplexed look still in her long-lashed, dancing brown eyes.  "You simply assume I'm the one who serves the drink and food here during the day?"

            The ex-gladiator, with a deep, rumbling laugh and a flash of teeth she couldn't seem to stop herself from dimpling in response to, said, "It seemed a natural presumption, Lady, the way you came in with the laundry.  Who else would a tavern owner trust but his betrothed to see that the business runs honestly and efficiently in his absence?"

            "Aye, Lucius," she humored him with a wink of her own and a light, jingling titter, "your charm may not have quite the same effect on the Sarmati, but the ladies are going to be vying with one another just to bask in that wonderful smile."

            To which he simply obliged her by grinning wider, replying, "But the Sarmati are who I'm hoping you'll help me charm," and she raised an eyebrow, doubtful, but her smirk showed, despite her misgivings, she would at least try, in whatever minor way, to help him.  

            He watched Cecilia, hips rolling from side to side, make her way over to the other four customers who indicated they were ready to leave.  Thereupon, he took two deep gulps of the tart liquid in his mug, thinking sourfully, _it's going to take a whole lot more than one quaff of liquor to make this work_.  Despite the masquerading playfulness he evinced, he wasn't nearly so at ease within himself; yet, there was little more he could do but contemplate the tavern's timber door with assumed casualness.

*****************************************************************************

            Minutes became a quarter hour, a quarter-hour turning into a half.  The lamplight flickering around the room gave it a cozy impression, and despite its rustic decor, Maximus imagined in the long, lonely nights of the winter, with wood crackling and coals burning in the braziers lining the room, the laughter of men responding to the flirtatious appeals of the women, cider overflowing in polished drinking vessels, and the smell of roasting meat filling the closed interior, the tavern must be a lively place.  

            In the absence of the men who'd been occupying the corner table when he'd arrived, there was a silence only broken by the faint rattling of rain against the shutters, Cecilia bustling about in the back room behind the bar.  She emerged once, from the cellar, hauling two small amphorae of wine, leaving them on the floor by the counter, looking inquiringly in Maximus' direction to see if he needed anything.  Raising his mug, he shook it, indicating he still had plenty of liquid to keep him more than satisfied, and she shrugged her understanding, before turning to disappear into the storage cellar.

            Another half an hour and the timber door unlatched, bringing Maximus to sit up in his chair, suddenly alert, watching the mist-leaden light of mid-day filter in, outlining, not the formidable trio of men he'd been expecting, but an elderly couple--a man a woman bent under the weight of bound scrap tinder.  Snickering at himself softly, Maximus leaned back into his seat, letting himself relax again while Cecilia greeted the couple with a gentle word, relieving the couple of their bundled piles, allowing the man and woman to find themselves a place to settle.

            She brought them a kettle of steaming liquid, two cups, and he figured they might well have been regulars too; perhaps contracted with the tavern to deliver kindling on a regular basis.  Absorbed in his own preoccupation with the arrival of the Sarmati, something in him still softened seeing the elderly man, who looked as wrinkled as a dried grape, help the woman lift the cup of liquid to her mouth, her movements impeded by age-thickened joints of her hands forced into a permanent claw-like position due to the swollen, knarled look of her digits.  

            An empty echo of Selene's voice came to him: her wry observation that couples, blessed with the fortune to age together, often ended up looking like one another more and more as the years passed by, until it grew difficult to tell the husband from the wife, or the wife from the husband.

            That memory, as with so many others encompassing Trujillo, would always stay ingrained upon the inward reflection of his soul; that place he'd escaped to over the years trying to wash away the horrid aftermath of carnage and violence so much a part of his existence.  He could still see her, perched on the naked root of a pear tree, emerging like dry bones, up from the crumbling dirt.  She was holding a giggling, four year old Marcus, the boughs of the branches laden with virgin fruit, an umbrella shading his wife and son from the bright, cloudless sky overhead.  He'd been scattering seed to the chickens, laughing at the antics of his son trying to reach for one of the unripened, tantalizing gems of fruit just beyond his grasp.  It had been a dry summer that year, but the pear crop had thrived, making up for the failed grape harvest.  

            Again, the immediacy of his surroundings fell away, closing his eyes and trying to call up the unruly fall of black waves, his wife's crowning glory, her eyes shining with some secret humor, dark as the sea at night.  

            His eyes popped open in a scowl.  To his ire, he summoned, unintended, a face, pale as his wife's had never been, slightly arched nose and a harmony of prominent cheekbones, flecked like a goose's egg with a light covering of freckles, and mocking hazel eyes  A voice, carrying the gentle lilt of the island, though deep in the way of feminine regard: _a pity, Spaniard, for the women of Cattaractonium..._

.  Unexpected, that, and he ground his teeth together in irritation at himself, for letting his mind stray so freely, unlocking corridors too distracting to be of any use at the moment.  Nemhyn was dangerous territory, not in the way his wife was, or even Lucilla, each of them associated with painful, recollections--bittersweet pangs that reminded him of the chasms of loss he'd crossed since the days of his youth--more recently since the death of Marcus Aurelius.  The daughter of Antius and Maeve--she was something different, confusing, and far more tempting--a distraction and possibility, reviving unwanted and, as far as he tried to convince himself, unneeded emotion.  A fact which she too, seemed more than aware of, given how quickly she'd retreated from him after that kiss in the midnight peace of palace gardens.  Had that only been a scant week ago, his first night in Londinium.  

******************************************

            The morning following that night, Maximus had met up with the General Crescens at the legionary fortress of Cripplegate, smoothing out the last details for the 'new recruit' prior to sending Maximus-Lucius off to his new posting.  The commander of the _VI Victoria Victrix_, father to Nemhyn, noticed the odd constraint Maximus seemed to exhibit whilst being in the veteran general's presence. He'd made no comment, much to the undue relief of the ex-gladiator, and Maximus, offering no explanation one way or another, only hoped Antius Crescens interpreted it as the ex-gladiator's reluctant acceptance of the legate's assistance for placing him amongst the _auxilia_ of Britannia.  

            Upon exiting the pratetorium's administrative offices to arrange for his horse and gear, Maximus passed two legionaires, presumably of the XX, based out of the provincial capital.  Of the pair, one soldier looked to be relatively young, untried, and unfamiliar with the liberties granted women of the Isle.  _She nearly bit my head off when I advised it may not be wisest for a lone woman to be heading north in that fashion, with no escort or guard,_ the young trooper voiced in some disbelief. His interest flagged, Maximus' assumption that the soldier could only be referring to one woman was confirmed by the man's next comment, said with that same disbelief, and good part admiration.  _Didn't know women could ride like that, mind you, sitting astride in the way of men.  All she had was some wooden healer's kit, and was dressed little better than a commoner.  Seemed slightly...improper_, _not that I would ever have mentioned that_, the young legionaire continued to his more experienced looking friend.  _That temper was enough to stifle the Eumenides, but she sure was something else to feast eyes upon._     

            Indeed, the Spaniard recalled thinking with unwilling fondness, as the converse of the two men faded down the corridor, the sight must have been...interesting, and the lashing of that temper was something he could have attested to personally.  But what had been brimming in his mind, and come back to haunt him at odd moments over the last week, on the northward road to Cattaractonium, was the softness of lips, and a yielding in his arms for the moment she had allowed him to hold her.  Before turning the corner in the corridor, the last words Maximus heard from the older soldier, obviously stationed longer on the island, reflected a bland familiarity with Britannia's customs that promised to be of unrelated, but no less curiosity. _You think the women of the General Crescens are eccentric, just wait until the first time you encounter the women of the steppe warriors.  Barbarian to the core, riding like men; dressing like men; and carrying weapons like men.  Say it's for the honor of some woman they've claimed as their glorified priestess...they call her the horse queen.  Don't even want to know what rites they're said to practice, up along the border of the Wall..._

********************************************

            A sound--the resounding clamor of the heavy timber door swinging wide open, a combined crescendo of masculine laughter carried by the sudden gust of wind blowing through the entrance, sputtering lamps, the steely clanking of sheathed weapons and armor--abruptly ended the meandering of his thoughts.  As usual, in the great mockery the gods seemed to have made of his life since fleeing Rome over two months ago, Maximus' guard was at lowest ebb at that moment when focus was the main basis for his success or failure in establishing himself with the Sarmati _auxilia._  

            Startled into sitting with unconscious rectitude once more, he sent a mental thanks to those same gods--nameless--for the brief distraction Cecilia, who had been tinkering with one of the cider vats, provided when she stumbled out from behind the bar, exclaiming heatedly, "Unless you want all the lamps to go out, close the damn--," her words dying away as her eyes, taking in the new arrivals, grew as wide as platters.  

            "M--my Lords," she stuttered unevenly, approaching them.  

            The gust of wind had quieted but the open door was letting in drizzle. A deep, heavily accented voice commanded in carefully articulated Latin, "Cyanus, do as our lady was about to suggest, and latch the door.  Fuel may be abundant on the Island, but there is no need to waste tinder wood unnecessarily."

            Maximus, studying the three men who had just arrived from his place along the perimeter of the tavern, was grateful for the dimness of the interior, as they hadn't yet noticed him amongst the shadows of dancing flame.  He watched a ridiculously handsome man, his full beard and long windswept hair an impossible shade of platinum, throw the one who had spoken an annoyed look as he gave the door a rough shove so that it slammed, causing the elderly couple to jump, and Cecilia to look as though she might have wished to be anywhere else but in their vicinity.  

            The tavern maid, still attempting to regain her self-possession, jabbered to the golden haired warrior who walked with a larger than life bravado back to his two companions, the details of their faces not quite discernible, "My Lords!  It has been a long while--nearly the whole of spring, some of the summer, since we've had the honor of your presence.  Carogennes and the women were beginning to wonder when you would be venturing back from the Wall...," going on, rather nervously to the ex-gladiator's ears, about some trivial matter.  

            Another of the men, the shortest of the three, paid the woman no heed, stepping past her to reveal, via the glow of the lamps, ruddy brown hair, un-Romanly long, but not so wild as his blonde companion's, tied back with a noose of leather.  Scanning the large hall with a glance as black as pools of ebony, he took in the elderly couple, on the opposite side of the room from where Maximus was seated, with scarce a change of assessing expression, passing over the disarray of chairs left by the earlier group of customers.

            It was when his gaze fell, lastly to Maximus' direction, where the ex-gladiator was now leaning back in his chair against the wall, his booted feet crossed on the table in front of him, the Sarmati warrior's black gaze sparked in way that might initially have been surprise.  Short-lived, for it was replaced by a most evident, and unpleasant malice.

            Maximus simply raised his brows, giving the man a brief incline of his head--the nonverbal inquiry of :  _is there a problem_, as audible in his posture as if he'd spoken the words into the tense silence that had grown superstitiously in the moments since the narrow-featured Sarmatian had noticed the Spaniard.

            Black-Eyes, as yet unnamed, spoke back to his golden haired companion, never wresting his gaze from Maximus' direction.  "It seems, Cyanus," his words carrying over the mindless chatter of Cecilia, "we have a newcomer to our ranks here at Cattaractonium."  Cecilia's voice died out as Cyanus stepped past her, coming more into the light filling the center of the tavern, the third companion remaining in his place by the door, near the woman.  "Do you suppose," Black-Eyes queried, "we ought to be the first to welcome him?"

            Like a small party to a private play, the elderly couple off at their table, watched with wary, rapt attention, as Cyanus the Golden answered his friend with a curt nod, giving the ex-gladiator, still tilting back in his chair carelessly against the wall, a viciously unwelcoming smile.  

            The two warriors closed in on Maximus like wolves to the kill, swaggering in a clamor of armor and weapons, with all the intimidating bravado of the strong and fearless.  Crowding over the seated form of Maximus, he couldn't help but notice they made a striking duo:  one dark, one light.  And formidable.  Cyanus, the Golden, had a fresh looking laceration on his cheek, and a Herculean physique reflective of a life given to the arts of battlecraft.  Black-Eyes, still unnamed, was not so massive in raw musculature; rather, he evinced an aura of felinesque energy, quick, flowing motions, and that unsettlingly opaque gaze.  

            By contrast, Maximus, in the standard issue armor of the auxiliary soldier, unadorned toughened rawhide cuirass, plain steel shoulder guards, leather strips hanging off the belt of his baldric, over the red-knee length tunica to his knees, and only a commoner's cloak of heavy grey wool, no weaponry to speak of, must have appeared drab next to the shimmering gallantry of gold-plated, scale breast plates, and long, deadly single-edged swords strapped to the hips of the two Sarmati.  It was obvious they were of elite rank, given the copious gold and silver of the numerous brooches, pins and medallions lining the heavy felt cloaks portraying abstract weavings of branches and knotted designs; more often, artfully carved images of wild animals--leopards, antelope, lions or horses.  The clasp securing the buckle of Black-Eye's cloak caught Maximus' attention, a coiled serpent with veins of silver running through its coiled body, head inserted to tail.  

            _That pin alone could purchase the freedom of an entire group of gladiators,_ he thought humorlessly. 

            "Your parents," the one called Cyanus began, electing to break the silence, giving the seated man a disdainful sapphire glance, "must have been extremely neglectful when teaching you of the dangers in sitting a chair that way."

            Maximus, returning each man's gaze without betraying a flutter of a lid, responded evenly, "You mean the part of balancing back against the wall, or having my feet on the table?"

            Black-Eyes answered this time, the ebony gaze cold, his words hissing like water upon hot coals. "About the consequences of occupying another's established place."

            In a voice dripping with perfect sarcasm, the ex-gladiator explained with forced amiability, "Alas, my parents' teaching of manners was sufficient unto itself.  My apparent error in judgment is no reflection upon them," his last words punctuated with a sudden, loud 'THWACK' as he let the chair drop back to the ground on all four legs, the sound causing Cecilia to jump, and the old woman to grip the arm of her husband in alarm.

            The action, unfortunately, did little to intimidate either of the Sarmati warriors, despite the chair having landed only inches from their feet.  If anything, the blazing look in Cyanus' eyes flared with more intensity--an aggression aggravated by Maximus' next words.  "A funny thing, to be corrected on the propriety of seating arrangements from a race of people who once took their meals sitting on the ground, about their hearth, drinking from the skulls of their slain enemies."  Leaning back casually, he crossed his hands behind his head, revealing, what must have been for the two Sarmatians, a puzzling lack of distress.  "Amazing how barbaric habits disappear so quickly since your banishment here to...the more civilized--

            The words were swallowed by the roar of outrage erupting from Black-Eyes, who, quicker than lightening could flash, had drawn his sword from the scabbard at his side, swinging it down towards the ex-gladiator's all-too-exposed neck.  At the same moment, Cecilia's piercing scream, a jumble of words about spilling no blood in Carogennes' tavern was drowned out by the deafening bellow of the man next to her.  "XANATHES!"  

            The third of the group to yet come forward crossed the distance from the gloom around the entrance in two great strides, his unmistakable voice of command filling the wooden and plaster walls of the tavern, over the rickety sound of the rain tapping against the shutters outside.  "HOLD YOUR SWORD!!"

            --the dangerous, deathly sharp blade in nearly full, swiping momentum, stopping just bare inches from separating the vital pulse of life in the Spaniard's neck.

            "Our host," the third man continued, now standing just in back of his two companions, eyes glinting amber bright in the flames afforded by the lamps, "is sacred.  Even if our guest," he finished, calmer now that disaster had been averted, "is not."

            Maximus--Lucius--who had barely flinched beyond a blink throughout the entire episode that had nearly ended his life then and there, was less ruffled than the newly named Xanathes, still shaking with the effort to not let his blade finish the action he'd started.  

            "Sheath your sword, Xanathes," the amber-eyed man commanded softly, his eyes still on Maximus.  "And Cyanus, breath, or you're going to collapse on the floor like a swooning maiden."  It was only then, that Maximus noted the curious spots of red in the blonde-haired warrior's cheeks, the flaring nostrils, how tensed the burly man was, coiled like a spring, too ready to follow the action of friend.

            It was just as Nemhyn had described to him:  the three Sarmati--Cyanus, the Golden; Xanthes, the Black-eyed.  

            Which would make the third companion, towering over Maximus' seated form, be only one man:  Batrades--once-prince of the Sarmatian peoples.  The tell-tale amber eyes, resting upon the supposed _auxilia_ recruit, sparked blood-flame from over the proud crescent arch of his nose, the strongly lined jaw, and eagiline planes of his cheeks, accented by triangular tattoos of royal blue ink and black spirals, matching the shades of his long, midnight hair and clipped beard.  In a voice full of quiet menace, the prince stated, "Old habits, even when not practiced, do not die so easily..._Roman_.  You are sitting in the chosen place of my officer...and Xanathes, as was nearly demonstrated, is not one who takes well to--

            "--a change of habit," Maximus broke in, echoing the Sarmati prince's overtones, grey gaze frosting over, letting show his visible contempt for the first time since encountering the three warriors of the steppe.    

            The words did little to diffuse the tension in the hall that had grown taut, like a harp string ready to break.  Cyanus curled his lip at the imprudent Roman's response to his leader, and Maximus heard the one named Xanathes hiss under his breath with obvious scorn.  The prince only cracked a humorless grin, his acknowledging reply, "Yes, a change of habit," more subdued than the blazing fury in the amber eyes let on.  "This is our table, Roman, and you are a rather uninvited guest."

            The lion facing down the wolf.  It was said that when the leaders of such impressive hunters met in the untamed wilds of their lands they gave each other a wide berth, sensing the utter potential for destruction they might inflict upon one another.  Best to avoid confrontation at all costs until circumstances dictated otherwise, and confrontation became unavoidable--when prey became scarce, or territories overlapped.  

            And when territories overlapped, impressions became of utmost importance, formed upon the basis of vaunted strengths.  Backing down and portraying weakness could be most detrimental to establishing one's place--especially when one was a wolf thrown into a den of lions.  

            Yet, the lions were now caged and though the wolf held little influence in the world better than that of an exiled refugee, the odds, to Maximus' mind, were balanced considerably.  

            So, in the way of a wolf comparing his strength to that of an equally formidable foe, who could well decide his fate one way or another, Maximus-Lucius stood at long last, straightening to his full height with a tightly coiled intensity, facing the man who thought to intimidate him with a few dire words and the threat of a sword.  

            "I see no mark of ownership scrawled into the wood of the table or these chairs..._soldier_," he finished, the last word an entitlement of insult to which the ex-gladiator noted, peripherally, the other two Sarmati warriors bristled in response to the slur upon their prince's rank.  "Alas," he continued, undaunted, "you'll have to excuse my error in judgment, but I have no intention of moving."

            Maximus was no small man, in fact he towered over a great many, but his physique had always tended more toward the muscular rather than to height.  Compared to those of the Latin blood, he was judged taller than the average.  Standing face to face with the Sarmati prince, he noted with an brief, inward grimace, he was just cutting above middling stature--the prince a hair taller, and his golden haired officer, Cyanus absolutely giant.  It was not something that mattered overly much, except at particular junctures such as this one, where nuances of posture, and choice of words could decide how worthy men judged one another to garner respect or be forever scorned as a craven fool.

            "However," Maximus continued, regarding Cyanus' stiffening of posture betraying a man barely containing the urge to fall upon the Spaniard with blows, only held in check by a quick, cutting hand motion from Batrades.  "If a change of habit might be facilitated by due courtesy, you and your men are invited to join me.  As you can see, there is no shortage of places," he gestured at the table and unoccupied chairs, " despite my having unintentionally interrupted your usual seating patterns."

            Purposely breaking eye-contact with the prince, the Spaniard nodded to Cecilia, indicating it was high time to get on with the delivery of cider.  "Helped along, of course, by some refreshment," he intoned, his contemptuous manner giving way to a sudden ease that made Batrades simply raise a skewed brow, and Xanathes exchange a confused look with Cyanus.  Sitting back down, Maximus continued conversationally, "I heard you were a time on the march, my friends."

            The bar-maid brought three brimming mugs of cold, crisp liquid to the table, all in quaffs  of beaten gold, plated with pearls and opals, bobbing a hurried curtsy to Maximus' nod of thanks before rushing back to the safety behind the bar counter, escaping the atmosphere of men acting like angered dogs fending off over a prize bone.  

            "It's on me, of course," Maximus urged helpfully to the three steppe warriors, all looking as though they would still rather hew through his neck with their swords, and toss his body out to the back alley of the tavern, than have him sit at their table.  

            And suddenly, like an unexpected blast of cold wind blowing in from the sea, sweeping over the land and all in its path, Batrades broke into a rich swelling of laughter, black waves hair falling over his shoulders as he threw his head back, teeth flashing white and strong against the dusky shade of his skin.  "Now men," he addressed his fellow officers--a very consternated looking Cyanus and Xanathes--"how can we pass on an offer like this," moving to take a place on the bench across from where Maximus was seated.

            The other two Sarmati warriors followed the lead of their prince, hesitating only a moment, Xanathes throwing the "_Roman_" a vicious look, before choosing the place next to him.  He was, Maximus figured, still sore over having to concede his usual chair.

            "A generous Roman, indeed," the black-eyed Sarmatian said, a venomous look of derision in his eyes as he traced the syllables of Latin writing on his mug.  "The only time a Roman is ever free with his money is when he wishes to bribe someone and gain his favor."  The comment was punctuated by the commiserating snort from Cyanus.  "So, _Roman_," the black gaze was probing Maximus' face with unnerving directness, "what is it you wish to bribe?"

            Batrades, the ex-gladiator noted, seemed content to let his men do the talking for the moment, the prince listening to the ensuing converse with a still gaze and masked expression.

            "You've answered it," the Spaniard replied.  "Nothing but your favor," allowing himself long swallow of cider to moisten a throat gone dry.

            "Our favor," Cyanus reiterated with heavy contempt.  "The only thing you Romans ever want from us is more gold to pour into your coffers and support your own damned legionaires, replace your own weapons, or pay for other bribes toward your own advancement."

            "I seek none of that," Maximus said, shaking his head, an ironic half-grin breaking his weighted gaze for a moment.  "Simply your goodwill."

            "So you can do what, _Roman_," asked Cyanus, drawing out the syllables of 'Roman' like a threat, taking a long swig followed by a reverberating _'plunk_' when he set his mug down heavily, waving Cecilia over for another filler.     

            The ex-gladiator, still on his first quaff, wondered how many more rounds he was going to go through before winning the three Sarmati over.  The coin wasn't the problem--the tolerance was.  He'd never been a heavy drinker, and from the way he recalled Nemhyn describing the Sarmatians' affinity for the drink of apples, they went through cider like most did water.

            "So I can train horses," he replied to the three other men at the table.

            Cecilia swept in and out of the table's vicinity with her platter and more brimming mugs of cider as inconspicuously as she could, but not before Xanathes indicated he wished for more drink as well.  

            "So train horses," the black-eyed warrior said, ebony wrath in his eyes.

            Maximus, frowning fleetingly at his full mug, over topped once more with the tart sweetness of sun-gilt liquid, stated bluntly, "I will. They happen to be your horses."  

            Which caused a long, drawn silence as the Sarmati warriors exchanged heavy looks amongst themselves, none of them saying anything into the low burning of the torches in the tavern hall, the patter of rain upon the shuttered windows, the clink of cups as the old woman on the other side of the room sipped tea.  A grim quiet swept away, all three steppe-warriors abruptly breaking into such a welling of riotous guffaws, as if on cue, the comedy stroke having been Maximus' comment, that the ex-gladiator could only wonder what part of _horses_ made the men so suddenly incapable of speech.  It was an uncomfortable feeling, realizing he was, inexplicably, the brunt of their uncontained joy, Cyanus slapping the table with his hand, and even Batrades--the most staid of the three as one would only expect of a prince--trying to control his composure, his broad shoulders under the scintillating gold of his scale cuirass still shaking as he tried to reach for words, only to fail into hopeless chortling again every time he'd look at the Roman.

            Finally, the prince, his facade once more that of the assessing officer, though his extraordinary eyes still sparkled something short of malicious humor, managed, "Ah, well, men--another Roman to fill our, as yet, unfilled post...Master of Horse."  Giving his two fellow officers a comradely look, he went on mockingly indulgent, "We must give the General Crescens credit for his persistence.  What are we up to now...eight men in the last seven years?"

            Cyanus, underscored his prince's comment with another derisive snigger, making Maximus wish to all the heavens he could remove the smug expression across the man's face with a bath of cider from his too-full mug.

            Throwing each of them a cautious look, the ex-gladiator said, "It seems I follow in quite a legacy."

            "A legacy of fools," Xanathes nearly hooted, his rising laughter only held in check by a furious glance from Batrades.

            "Fools," the prince explained, turning back to the presumed Roman _auxilia_, "who found themselves rather deficient when it came to training a horse for battle."

            "So, what happened to your last fool," asked Maximus.

            The prince, taking a sip of his cider, nodded to Xanathes.  

            "The last man to occupy your position, Roman," explained the black-eyed Sarmati, "was found beating one of the new purchases we've procured these last few years acceptable to our standards--a mare of Libyan stock--," Maximus murmured an appreciative aside as Xanthes continued.  "She wasn't overly large, more suited to light regiment; she was a spirited animal all the same.  The balless idiot took the beast out to run through some drilling formations the day after it had rained a harsh downpour.

            "The ground in the exercise field was too muddied for an inexperienced mount ridden by a skilless trainer.  He demanded too much of her too soon.  The little mare stumbled in a puddle of water and our trainer was thrown," Xanathes finished, his eyes shining fury, unblinking.

            "Of course," observed Maximus, unsurprised.

            Cyanus took over telling what followed, biting out,  "The bastard blamed the horse and not himself.  He took a whip to the poor mare over snout and neck."

            "An unorthodox right for a man entrusted to train such noble animals," conceded Maximus.

            Batrades, watching the ex-gladiator with careful attentiveness, as though considering the worth of every word their newly appointed Master of Horse spoke, concluded, "The little mare hasn't been the same since.  She'd been lamed from the incident, albeit temporary, but was beyond terrified.  The beating simply magnified her fright."  

            The prince wasn't the only one forming his own judgments off chosen words; Maximus could read the disgust in Batrades' tone as plain as daylight.

            "She spooks when anyone approaches her from the front," inquired the ex-gladiator.

            "Horribly," the prince affirmed, meeting the Spaniard's flint-grey eyes, gaze for gaze.

            "And I'm sure you have tried coming from the back and side instead, with a bit of food for inducement so she might regain trust that the hands of men are not meant to strike, but to soothe."

            "Of course," Batrades replied, matching the ex-gladiator's tone from before.  He hadn't exactly warmed as the discourse continued, but discussing horses directly seemed to have relaxed him and his fellow warriors.  His grin was brief, cryptic, but non-mocking this time.  "And with patience and gentle treatment, Talaes may even re-establish that trust.  As I said, though, she will never be the same."

            "No," agreed Maximus, "but it needn't mean the end of a good horse.  Only an incompetent trainer."

            "An end that was too merciful for the bloody arse," snarled Xanathes.  "He ought to have had his hands cut off, his eyes splintered, and gelded to boot."

            With a slight raise of brows at the man's strong reaction, Maximus pointed out, voice neutral, "You expend a great deal of effort on men you deem as fools."

            "_Bah_," Cyanus spat with antipathy.  "How would you understand.  You're no different than the rest of imbeciles who have come through Catterick over the years, Roman."

            So maybe the Sarmati hadn't exactly relaxed, but at least they weren't threatening to cut his head off anymore.  The question Maximus was about to voice must have been obvious across his features, for Batrades, overlooking Cyanus' comment, explained, "The harshest thing he received from our spineless, feeble excuse of a camp prefect was an informal reprimand, and an advisement to perhaps, not take to whipping so eagerly next time.  _Horses are costly_, he said, _no matter if they are a legionaire's or a barbarian's."_  The smoldering resentment in the prince's eyes told Maximus this was not the first time Batrades had come to heads with the prefect.  

            Following a loud swallow, Xanathes fixed the ex-gladiator with another gut-wrenching glare, and words which might have been intimidating to any other man, had Maximus, indeed, followed the run of typical trainers appointed to the Sarmati _alae_ of Cattaractonium over the years.  "Don't think he escaped so lightly, Roman."

            The Spaniard's response was a cock of an eye-brow, which, to Xanathes' opinion, maddeningly evinced amusement toward his avarice, rather than fear.

            "He was persuaded, quite effectively, to...," the black-eyed warrior paused for effect, "put in for transfer two days after the incident."

            Maximus failed to stifle his rueful cough, and the smirk that followed.  "No doubt helped along in his decision by you three."  A silence.  Then, an unanticipated ripple of laughter following his response, a momentary release from the tension, diffusing it to less palpable proportions, leaving in its aftermath, the sense he'd passed a first test of approval.  

            Cyanus, leaning across the table, looked askance at his empty mug, holding the Spaniard's gaze with his piercing  blue eyes.  "So, you believe you know horses?"

            The ex-gladiator's chuckle wasn't completely forced when he answered after a moment of ponderance, "No, only a man who is sometimes blessed with the grace of being acknowledged by creatures who far outstrip any man I have ever met in nobility, strength, or spirit."

            Batrades, hearing this, breathed out softly, nodding slightly, his eyes slanted, considering as he examined the new _auxilia_ recruit in a way that suggested a slow, reluctant respect.

            His gilt-haired officer wasn't so easily satisfied, however, Cyanus' eyes still blazing with hostility.  "What did you do in the army before this assignment, Roman?"

            The words seemed to echo into the hushed quiet of the tavern, the sounds of Cecilia arranging stone-glazed flasks of wine, hollowed out wooden mugs, in preparation for the evening crowd.  Maximus had imprinted the story of his contrived past upon his mind, foreseeing the point when he would need to impart it himself, in as credible a manner as he could portray.

            But the truth of the past still broke through the wall of indifference he'd tried to build up, separating this new person, Lucius Castus, from that of Maximus Decimus Meridius--who'd been left behind on the sands of the Colosseum, renewed to the blank slate of the future during that long night the second time returning to Trujillo.  If the pain had been lessened, perhaps, by time, and an acceptance of unchangeable events, the bitterness still showed with a mordancy in his voice that all three of the Sarmati warriors could identify from their own personal afflictions.              The voice of loss and powerless regret.

            "There was a falling out over a change of commanders in the legion I served in, formerly," the light in Maximus' eyes turning to an inward focus. "They appointed a man I refused to function under...an upstart who was unworthy in every respect to lead an--," he almost slipped, about to say '_Empire_'.  "--to lead such a vast company of soldiers."

            Batrades' expression was stern, unreadable even while his fellow officers, sipping abstractedly from their quaffs, seemed increasingly drawn into the "Roman's" unraveling tale,  reciting how he'd deserted one night after discovering the "newly appointed impostor" had supported the massacre of the former legate's innocent wife and son.  The acute wrath the Spaniard once felt at their murders had dulled over the last two years, but he found himself needing to relax fingers with a conscious effort, clutching the table's edge far too tightly.

            "I refused to be party to a man like that, so after becoming little more than a wandering vagabond, I began hiring out my skills to small time business operators, merchants and the like as a private mercenary.  My last contractor, a couple of months back, thought to cheat me of a fair fortnight's wage.  We made arrangements so I might collect from him at a tavern in one of the seedier areas of Rome...not a place usually frequented by the urban patrols, so we might draw unwanted attention, especially given the arrests that were rampant in the City under the late, young emperor's reign.  I was on my way back to my inn, when four thugs he'd hired set upon me in a back alley from the shadows.  They didn't just take back my wages, they took my weapons, my chain-mail, money, everything.  

            "After, they threw me into a gutter, leaving me for dead, which I well might have been from blood loss and infection had a woman and her daughter posing as peasant herb dealers not come across me a day or two later.  I was incoherent, delirious for a good week after that, I don't remember much until the fever broke, and found myself being tended to by women trained as thoroughly as any attending physician of a military hospital might be."

            The Spaniard continued to explain how the women had offered their assistance after noticing the telltale S.P.Q.R tattooed on his left shoulder; how he'd mistrusted them initially, until they hired him to safeguard the remainder of their journey back to Britannia, from whence they'd originated.  

            Cyanus, for the first time since encountering the newly appointed _auxilia _recruit, observed without animosity, "They almost sound like the wife and daughter of the General Crescens," to which Maximus nodded a brief assent.  "But they've been gone for the last three years, cavorting about the East," the big, blonde warrior explained.

            Having listened to the women's tale of their travels that first night in Londinium, a week ago, Maximus thought with an inward glimmer of amusement, 'cavorting' wasn't exactly how Nemhyn had made it sound.  He noticed the exchange of somber glances between Xanathes and Batrades, however--the undercurrent of hinted imperative that suggested there was something of more importance to his story that went beyond the seemingly random recruitment of a new master of horse to the Sarmati _alae_.

            "Antius will be glad for his wife's counsel once again, I'm sure," Batrades murmured offhandedly.  "Given the recent dissension amongst the Brigante chieftains, and their druids, Maeve has a gift for easing their desire of rebellion and joining with the Caledonii across the Wall."

            "Too many young princes with not enough to do," Cyanus said, scowling.  "That wouldn't be a problem if Tirus would ever approve funds for a fresh shipment of brood mares.  Then we could keep them busy with the breeding and training endeavor for at least the next generation."

            "No," Batrades averred, his amber eyes still hooded, enigmatic.  "I think it has more to do with the fact that Pertinax drew so heavily from the garrisons along the Wall, and the legions themselves to support his claim to the throne.  It's not only the Caledonii who have been waiting for an opportune time to wage an all out invasion.  There has always been a faction amongst the northern tribes, especially the Brigante federation that has felt choked by the shackles of the Eagles, particularly their druids.  If Antius didn't pay heed to the old ways as much as he has, they would have risen up long ago.  Maeve may not be on her death-bed, but her years lie closer the Mother of Shadows than the embodiment of their Brigantia, and her only daughter refuses her birthright as yet."

            The sense of disquieting doom that had colored much of Maximus' converse with Antius, that first night in Londinium was coming back to him.  He had enough years of experience in the craft of war, living along the northern fronts of the Danube, to realize, in spite of his mind's eye interpreting the fertile crops of summer, the lazy flow of the Ousse's tributary sloping away from the vicus of Catterick to the east, the mist-leaden hills in the distance he'd glimpsed upon arriving to the fort—all of which lent a temperate calm to the countryside--peace was a deceptive curtain of tranquility that could conceal the tides of war until the full wave came crashing, full force upon the land and Her people.

            The ex-gladiator was studying the paneling of the maple-crafted table, looking up when Xanathes, cutting the current direction of converse abruptly, said, "We never let our new recruit go on with his tale, gentlemen.  If we talk anymore of Britannia's troubles, he may just go scurrying back to the Continent before we've had a chance to...break him in."  The opacity of the steppe-warrior's gaze couldn't hide the cruel glint.

            Maximus' facade of good-humor had diminished rapidly after having to re-hash, once more, elements of a past that brought back the memories they did. Feeding the black-eyed officer the full force of his own glare, like steel striking sparks against stone, the Sarmati perceived something in the other man's gaze that proved slightly more intimidating than he'd been expecting, and blinked.  Xanathes didn't exactly look away, but the outward aggression wavered some, Maximus making no effort to break the locked focus.  This was how predators in a pack established rank, and he, who had somehow always become transmuted into a natural leader, had defied an emperor, and braved the summons of a god, albeit only in a dream, was hardly going to be unsettled by a second-ranked officer in an _alae _which currently stood in dishonor.  .

            Batrades, however, was another story, the prince's words, when he spoke, simultaneously breaking the ensuing stare-down, and catching the 'master of horse' like a blow to the head.  "What legion did you do service under, Roman?"

            And Maximus, trying to conceal, with effort, the sudden alarm, a feeling of being unbalanced, as one can be when a smoothly-going mount stumbles unexpectedly, answered mechanically, "The _Felix Primae_."  The frigidity in the Spaniard's soul was reflected by the austere visage of the Sarmati prince, and he knew they must each have been seeing the same replay of a scene from nearly eight years before--the frozen expanse of the Danube, the harsh lash of the winter winds across the sparse banks, a chaotic amalgam of men and horses, the whinnying of wounded, terrorized animals slipping on the blood of dying men, and their war-steeds, the loud clash of steel and the dull thunk of shields.  A volley of heavy arrows, and the blur of battle, men one life away from losing their own.  

            Finally, the utter hush, the stillness of death that falls over the field of battle when the foe has been beaten, and the cries of raven and vulture are the last to fill the air as snow fell with gentle, paradoxical peace, upon the splayed bodies of severed limbs and corpses littering the ice-covered waters of the Danube.  And the winter's quickly fading sunlight, the blood-tinged fingers of encroaching night illuminating in sad, solemn triumph, the gold and bronze emblazoned _imago_, the essence of Marcus Aurelius spear-headed into the a frozen embankment of snow. Next to it, the purple-silk embroidered gonfalon of the Felix Lions, gold threaded, tasseled, billowed its feat in muted victory over the fallen, gilt-encased head of a dragon-standard:  _dracconis _of the Royal-Iazyges, snarling in eternal defiance at the wings of the Eagles.

            "I would prefer," Maximus said into the silence of weighted stares, feeling as though he were waiting for Xanathes' sword to sever his neck once more, "you not be too free with who you decide to share that information with."  Batrades frowned, imperceptible almost, next to the glitter in his eyes, prompting Maximus, who leveled his gaze, now at all three men equally, to add, "It could be very...inconvenient for all concerned if knowledge of my prior post were to leak too readily.  Not only for myself, and for all of you, but for the General Crescens, his wife, and daughter as well.  You understand, don't you?"

            A beat of passing silence.  Four men at a table, stolid, impassive, intimidating.  Enough so that the tavern-girl, Cecilia, tried to delay as long as possible, returning to refill empty mugs, years of watching men, alcohol, and tempers mix in ways usually proving to end both in bodily damage, and property replacement ingrained in her memory.

            Finally, as had been occurring since the Sarmatians' introduction to their newly appointed master of horse, Batrades commanded the shift in mood, a slow smile playing across the angular plains of his face, his baritone laugh, welling to encompass the hall, the sputtering of the lamps around the room, and the tapping of the rain on the shutters.  Maximus was finding himself at as much of a loss as the prince's officers looked to be at that moment, Cyanus' brows raised in question, and Xanathes' response, a shrug that said, _don't look to me for an explanation._

            "I think I understand perfectly, Roman," the prince declared, still laughing, though there was a sober edge to its sound.  "You," he went on, motioning with an eloquent gesture of a powerful hand, "are an exile.  An exile amongst your own people." 

            "Something along those lines," Maximus attempted, his grin coming off as more a grimace.  The observation was only too true.  They had no idea how much.

            "This does shed a rather...interesting light on you," was the measured response of the prince, his features once more giving way to grave solemnity.  There was a bent to those words, however, that offered release, for the moment, the telling strain that had been building between the four men, Maximus on one side of it, the three Sarmati on the other, transformed intangibly.

            Cecilia, sensing the shift in atmosphere, wandered her way over to the men, finally, unable to guess at what had altered specifically, but realizing the tension from before had diffused enough that the chances of violent tempers erupting had diminished greatly.

            Armed with her pitcher, Cecilia was ready to supply the next round, and Cyanus, never one ot refuse a refill, pushed his mug toward her.  

            Only to be deterred by Batrades, who shook his head.  "No more for now, my friend."  The golden-haired man scowled at his prince with obvious displeasure.  In a voice leaving little room for argument, Batrades said, "We still have a days tasks ahead of us that require our full wits, and I," he paused, looking to Maximus, "I have more detailed news of the front to impart to Tirus than Zaraxes was able to; and a newly assigned trooper to introduce.  And you know how Tirus responds to unannounced arrivals."

            Xanathes' snicker, Cyanus' rueful twist of his lips made the ex-gladiator wonder just how their presumed camp prefect did, indeed, respond to such unanticipated visitors.  

            Following their prince's sudden, smooth motion, both the Sarmati warriors moved to stand, readjusting the long fall of felt cloaks, fastening stays, securing sword buckles and the like.  Maximus, still sitting, was struggling to dampen a fresh sense of displacement, akin to how he'd felt when first arriving to Britannia's shores the week before.  He was still in the midst of realizing, with crushing awareness, how drastically his life had changed, all at once, dizzied by the feeling, not heeding Cyanus' over-the-shoulder comment to Cecilia, as he and Xanathes took their leave before exiting the tavern.  "The generous Roman volunteered to cover the cost of our drink, Lady.  Send your husband our greetings, and good wishes."

            The tavern-girl, standing by the table where the prince still was, waved towards the door as the two men exited, a look of relief just discernible over her sweet-featured face, before she turned back to Batrades and the strange new officer of the _alae_.  Her tinkling laughter brought the Spaniard to a start for a second time.  "This is how I found him before he decided to enter my fiancé's _establishment of ill-repute_," and Maximus shook his head once, roughly, noticing Batrades giving him a peculiar look as the ex-gladiator stood to join him.  

            Maximus, replacing his woolen cloak over his shoulders followed Cecilia and Batrades' lead to the door.  They stopped just before the exit to the sheltered overhang outside, where a gust of moist-imbued wind blustered down the alley, swinging the creaking,  splintered slate of wood, advertising the '_Finest Lady in Britannia'_.  

            Batrades, looking to the new master of horse expectantly, said, "You did offer to pay, Roman.  Was your promise a bluff, said to soothe the tempers of my men, or are your going to give the lady her due fee for her gracious hospitality?"

            The Spaniard opened his mouth to answer, caught Cecilia's dancing brown eyes, and the comely hostess ended up explaining, "The cost, my Lord-Prince, was already covered before you and your officers arrived."

            Batrades simply raised one straight, black brow before nodding slowly, his amber eyes measuring his new recruit in careful regard, gradual comprehension painting his features with a shadowed amusement.  "So, our presence wasn't entirely unforeseen."  Maximus saw a corner of the prince's mouth twitch upward for a moment, and the 'new recruit' lifted his shoulders in a careless shrug, his manner composed as he bowed his departure to Cecilia.

            "I thank you Lady, for you assistance," he mentioned in gratitude.  "And for your cider.  It is indeed worthy of high praise, as is the one who serves it," he murmured, playing at the courtier, hearing her merry giggle when he pressed the top of her hand to his lips.

            "Aye, Lady," Batrades echoed, taking her proffered hand as well, in this sudden farce of outshining flattery and compliment.  "As always, your service and your ambiance are unmatched for grace and charm.  You do your husband's establishment much credit."

            Her chuckle was light as she flipped her heavy black braids back, scolding, "Oh stop it, both of you, or I may be reconsidering marriage vows after all," her smile winsome even as she continued to soak up the flattery.  Considering the stress they had caused over the last hour, she thought inwardly, in was the least either man could do, and they were both rather well made, doubling the worth of such pretty phases.  But basking in such honeyed adulation did nothing to get the tavern ready for the evening crowd, nor the ladies prepared to amuse their clients for the night.  

            Opening the heavy timber door to the mist-leaden air outside, she said, "Now leave so I can tell all of the ladies that their favorite prince and his officers have returned," winking cleverly, Batrades paying her with a flash of white teeth and a deep laugh.  "And," she added, her tone going smoky once more, taking in Maximus' muscled height and stature, "If I'm not mistaken, a mysterious new officer has come to the ranks of Catterick.  You'll be back, Roman?"

            His chuckle was brief, but sincere.  "Probably not.  I'm not one who frequents taverns so often," he explained as he followed Batrades out the doorway to the alley beyond.  He saw Xanathes and Cyanus, walking ahead, hooded against the rain, shoulder to shoulder, turn the corner to the main street leading up to the fort.

            "Ah, such a disappointment," came her exaggerated regret, doused in playful mirth.  "Until next-time, then," obviously not believing him as she laughed again, closing the door.

            With a meaningful look of_ shall we proceed_, across his features, the Sarmatian prince stepped out into the rivulets of water running through the alley, waiting politely for the Spaniard to do the same.  Passing the iron-worker's house, they were careful to avoid the puddles and wet piles of mashed gravel and mud that had collected in the gutters of the street.  

            "You have an official reference from the General Crescens, I expect," Batrades' voice rang off the white-washed facades of the buildings they passed.

            "From Londinium," Maximus confirmed.  "Straight out of Cripplegate.  The details of the front were, I believe, dire enough that the governor sent him post-haste to discuss with the provincial magistrates what next needs to be done in-so-far as reinforcements, supplies and the defenses beyond the Wall."

            The main street crossing to the central square was quiet in the early afternoon's drizzle, though the vendors' sturdier shops of wood and plaster, or stone, possessed fronts sheltered by canvas awnings allowing the customers, thinned since the morning's onrush to the market, to still take issue of the food or material items for purchasing.  Against the gray pallor of clouds, pregnant with more rain, having soaked the evaporation that came with the cooler air of the Pennines off to the northwest, the southern ramparts of the fort, the watchtowers of the gate that guarded the causeway to the _vicus_, rose like lonely sentinels.  Maximus turned back, for a moment, studying the imposing granite walls of the theater rising up over the town's edifices at the opposite end of the _vicus_ boundary, blending with the fog-enshrouded drabness of the other buildings.

            "The fighting was bad," the Sarmati prince finally admitted, as they moved up the slope toward the fort.  "I'm certain you can be filled in on the details later.  What occupies my mind, presently, Roman, is how our drinks came to be purchased in anticipation of our arrival.

            "I said I took to the road a wondering vagabond," Maximus let on, with a crooked, despondent smile.  "I didn't say I came to this island without allies."

            "Ah," dawning understanding alighting the proud austerity of the Sarmatian's face, "your peasant women."

            "You named them," the ex-gladiator insisted.  "The mother and daughter of the General Crescens."

            The two men slowed their pace as they moved from over the dirt packed causeway to where fresh gravel had just been laid down outside the fort's southern, barricaded postern.  They made their way around two civilian workers having some difficulty getting their cart, loaded with mosaic and brick scrap, onto the loose scattering of pebbles and rock.

            "So the Roman has powerful allies, indeed," Batrades observed, pensively.  

            Maximus stopped, then, abruptly, ill-concealed annoyance tingeing his words.  "Simply for future reference, I do have a name.  It's Lucius Castus.  You may want to start using it.  '_Roman_' gets somewhat generic, after a time."

            Batrades, hardly taken aback by the censure in his new officer's voice, responded evenly, "Is it because calling you so is a reminder of your former citizenship...the status you once held."

            "Partly," Maximus-Lucius, answered stiffly.  "More, because I don't have a drop of Latin blood in me that amounts to any consequence greater than either you or your fellow warriors."

            The civilians with the cart were giving the two formidable looking soldiers odd looks as they moved by, finally having managed to get the cart rolling a slow progress through the gravel, albeit a bumpy and awkward one.  Neither Batrades nor Maximus paid them the least attention, their gazes locked once more, equal wills contending to not be undone by the other.  

With a mockery more than implicit in his voice, Batrades broke the silence.  "Names, esteemed Lucius, are a thing sacred to my people.  We do not demand one offer their identity until a trust is formed, and to ask for it before a trust is gained can offer unintended insult."

            "But if that name if freely offered, before an indication of trust one way or another, what then," the ex-gladiator asked, his expression hard.

            The Sarmatian's look was stony, giving no leeway for releasing the tension that had reimposed itself like a weed between cracks in dried earth, surreptitious.  "Then we decide if the man is a fool for trusting too soon, or if he is indeed, truly capable of that which he claims he has been assigned here for."   Maximus caught the hint squarely.  There was little attempt to disguise the emphasis that the prince's comment was directed at his new master of horse.

            Batrades broke their staring contest, choosing to begin walking toward the compound, leaving the ex-gladiator to catch up to him with his long strides before coming abreast of the prince.  "From whence do your illustrious bloodlines originate, Lucius," the Sarmati inquired with random casualness.  

            "Hispania," was the trenchant reply, a touch of pride shading the ex-gladiator's voice.

            Perhaps the way it was said, or the word itself, brought the prince to pause once more, just short of the gate. A guard patrolling the rampart from above called down for the password, and Batrades simply frowned at the guard in annoyance, biting out, "_Cervesa_," before he turned back to regard the man before him, amber eyes taking in the erect bearing, the wary light in a gaze matching the shade of leaden skies overhead.  

            The words the Sarmatian spoke next, "They breed good horses in Hispania," chilled the ex-gladiator to breathlessness. It wasn't the bass tones of the prince he heard, but the echo of a young boy's lighter inflections.  

            With a penetrating flash of gray eyes, the ex-gladiator, with his inherent pride, opted for the initiative to turn away this time, saying, "Some of the best," moving off to enter through the gate that had lifted to admit the cart with the two civilian workers moments before.

            The booming laughter from behind was not long in coming as Batrades strode to catch up with him, entering at the Spaniard's side, taking in the spread of the barracks before them, long columns of  rectangular buildings, tiled roofs awash with the seemingly eternal rainfall, arranged on either side of the southern road in organized, Roman regularity--linear and evenly spaced apart.  The ex-gladiator threw the prince an exasperated look as they began their way toward the praetorium.  Batrades, in his sudden amusement, only clarified, "I can already see Tirus is going to grow as fond of you as he has come to appreciate me and my men..._Spaniard_."


	6. Mother of Romans

**Chapter 6: Mother of Romans**

Mid-August 182 CE

Countryside of Latium—16 miles south of Rome, in the rural district of Aricia

************

"The Niobe of nations!  there she stands,

Childless and crownless, in her voiceless woe;

An empty urn within her wither'd hands,

Whose holy dust was scatter'd long ago."

George Gordon, _Lord Byron_: quoted from Priestesses—N.L. Goodrich (1989).

************

The day was typical of those occurring in the high-Italian summer: hot, bright, and dry--the sun burning away the feeble breeze wafting with discouraging infrequency from the distant heights of the Apennines.  A jagged outline to the east, the mountainous spine of Italia wavered gray and green, the slopes arrayed with lush vegetation as they rose from a flat expanse of plains and fields into the foothills ascending to the highlands overlooking the countryside. Despite the airy fabric of gold-threaded cotton covering her hair, heat and perspiration persisted in collecting under the veil, moist and aggravatingly itchy.  The droplets of sweat slid down her scalp, dampening her concealed honeyed-chestnut waves at the hairline, where the filmy head covering was held in place by a circlet of glinting, beaten silver crowning her brow. 

            A joyous time of year, late summer was characterized by the annual harvest festival of _Diana Nemorensis, the very air abounding with laughter and merriment overflowing from a riotous procession of men, women, and children scattered about and behind her. The collection of celebrants was largely composed of her own villa-staff: field-workers, farm-hands, household slaves, the blacksmith, his family, and the like.  Making their way down a beaten dirt road, the woman noticed her jubilant assortment of rural dwellers had grown to include other peasant workers, either slave or freedman--she had no way of differentiating--from one or two of the neighboring establishments neatly built into the landscape of rural Latium. During holidays declared in the honor of the High Ones, distinctions of class did not usually prevail here in the countryside. The stooped ones--prematurely wrinkled women, gap-toothed, weathered looking men eyeing the changing seasons from beneath their wide-brimmed straw hats, clothed in rough woolen tunics--were usually the outdoor laborers.  Their counterparts of the household, neatly attired in well-fitted, summer tunics of linen or Egyptian cotton—kitchen staff, nursemaids, stewards, tutors, artisans, and so on—differentiated their status by lording superior airs over the lowly field-rustics, a subconscious attempt, as the woman observed it, at obliterating the truth of their vassalage.  _

            To her mind, however, slaves were slaves.  Whether the pampered, indoor servants, or the over-worked, long-suffering outdoor sort, she had been trained since birth to the grandeur of nobility, puzzling out the machinations of the Imperial court, not distinguishing between the presumed status of Rome's nameless, vast and torrid underclass.

            Hence, excepting for what a person might afford in individual adornments, there was no distinction of class.  There simply existed, on this day in the late Italian summer, a laughing pageant of revelers winding, in disorderly procession, down a gradual decline which spliced a vista of agrarian tracks—parched, barren fields of pocketed furrows-- like an errant serpent, dust rising in wake of the crowd's progress. A brook at the foot of the low bevel slugged a lazy path across lowland pasture, carpeted by tufts of dried grass, prickly brambles of heath, stunted, twisting bunches of broad-needled shrubs. The occasional sheaf left by a careless sickle could be still discerned in the indistinct shadows lengthened by the setting sun--a flat spread of landscape that, up until morning, had been fields graced by Nature's richness of gold, green, saffron-hued wheat or barley.

            They forded a small foot-bridge--Lucilla, her pony, and the ecstatic gaggle of men, women, and children carrying her along in their collective, rustic joy. Generations of rural dwellers had tapped this bemired tributary now trickling with the low-ebb of late summer, a lethargic, watery course-way branching off the turbid, slithering fissure dividing the Eternal City--Mother Tiber--sixteen miles to the north. Giggling children tossed flower petals about the beaten track leading up from the small, wooden gangplank. Two girls, sisters, Lucilla figured, stood out for their blonde braids, an unusual feature in this collection of dark hair and dark eyes kin to the native dwellers of pastoral Italia.  

Like scented jewels, the aroma of lavender and rose petals rose up with the dust, trammeled in the shifting jumble of celebrants, mingling with the vibrantly colored ruby and plum peony-wreaths crowning the brows of the women, encircling the necks of the men.

A daughter, a wife, a sister of Caesers, the woman could only fathom that she felt more like the wilted, shrivled twining of pink roses, white clover heads, and blue flax-flower woven into the mane of her gray-dappled pony.  The flowers, like Lucilla, were fading from the heat of the day, decaying inside by the imprisonment of a grief, alienating her from the joy otherwise abounding.  

Since her hastened marriage with Quintus completed nearly two months ago, Lucilla had failed to break the pall of depression rendering her numb and passive to the events of the living world. The midst of bucolic celebrants about her seemed a mockery of her endless sorrow, a rift separating her from those who partook in the simple joy of a plentiful harvest, food ensured for the coming respite of winter, till the toils of spring came upon the rural tenant-farmers once more.  

Latium's peaceful countryside had done little to relieve her mourning, fade the image of Lucius' skull crushing like the soft pulp of a melon by a single swing of Virius Lupus' sword.  Her torrent wail of rage had echoed down the indifferent, pillared halls of the Imperial Palace, purest white marble and gold-veined columns, witness to generations of bloodshed amongst the ruling families of Rome.  

Indeed, it was whispered amid the more superstitious of the palace staff, the woe and curse of Roma Mater Herself shattered all the way to the summit of the Palatine Hill, across the banks of the Tiber to the Capitoline--a night four months gone, phasing into the turbulent events of the Eternal City.  

 Lucilla adjusted her weight easily, side-positioned on her pony, feeling the muscles of her compact mare bunch with exertion as they began a steady rise past a spread of modest waddle and daub abodes bordering the widening dirt track. Amid the riotous frolicking of the country-dwellers, only Sekt-aten, the Nubian slave who had been assigned to safeguard Lucilla during exile on Capri—kept on by Quintus as her handmaid after the nuptial arrangements had been completed—seemed to share in the cloud of melancholy surrounding Marcus Aurelius' youngest daughter.  Treading with an oblivious regality next to Lucilla's pony, the Nubian was dark-skinned, even by the standards of rural Latium's inhabitants. In a face closed to any display of emotion, gazing straight ahead into the drawing of twilight, Sekt-aten's high arching cheekbones, long slant-tipped eyes evidenced her exotic origins.  _She's like a displaced jewel, a polished onyx lost in a pile of uncut diamonds, Lucilla thought with vaguely felt sympathy. _

Under a towering line of ancient ash and oak rising up like elemental giants on either side of the lane, the trail of revelers arranged themselves into two abreast, a reverent calm passing back through the pageant of country-dwellers as they neared the shrine.  Lucilla heard the mother of the two blond-haired sisters laughingly call the children to her side.  

Rounding a gradual bend gullied between two low hills, late summer's gifts of purple-hued alfalfa, the minute golden bulbs of tansy flowers, and browning, waste-high tapered spikes of wild-grass, covered the swells of dusty earth like the leftover tatters of an old rug. There, at long last, on the final knoll to which the winding dirt path led, stood the shrine. 

Facing a horizon transformed to a living mosaic of rose-gilt splendor in the west, the humble temple stood on a granite podium built into a low earthen terrace, atop an ancient, underground aquifer.  Slender branches of elm trees had grown together toward the great sky, obscuring the rectangular dimensions of the limestone walls, the simple grandeur of smooth white, Doric columns gating the front peristyle. Here, in this grove, precinct sacred to Diana of the Wild Places, the crowning limbs of the age-thickened tree-trunks joined in a ring of verdant leaves, providing an arboreal division between the world of men and this hallowed territory of divinity. From the gently swelling foothills enveloping the grove, the fields and dwellings of cultivated lands faded away in the opposite direction, shading to a dusky gray-blue shadow, distant features painted indistinct in the twilit world of sunset.  

The aura of hushed power pulsing through the small wood was so palpable even Lucilla's pony seemed sensitized to it, stopping of its own accord, rendering her gentle pressure on the reign unnecessary. _Or perhaps she is as grateful as I for the break in motion, _she mused. The children too, seemed awed by the presence of sublime calm permeating the twilit grove; where before they had been rushing about with youthful energy, now they emulated the reverent quiet of their parents. 

Sliding from the back of the small mare, Lucilla sighed with relief and exhaustion, handing the reigns to the Nubian woman. The guarded glance Sekt-aten threw about the wooded copse made Lucilla wonder what thoughts her handmaid was concealing behind the dark, carefully controlled façade. Looking about herself, it was then, the daughter of Marcus Aurelius observed, on a small rise of granite-carved stairs leading up to the low entrance of the temple's colonnaded anterior, two other women waited. Beneath a single, pinnacled dome—a shadowed smudge spearheading a dusk-filled sky laced with violet wisps of clouds—the women's features blurred in the wavering illumination provided by the roaring bonfires lit atop massive pylons, one to each side of the bottom step.

On sacrosanct earth, one did not tread with sandals worn in the world of mortals when entering the shrine of the goddess. Lucilla was careful to remove hers. 

On sacrosanct earth endowed to the goddess, even the fauna, her sacred wards, sensed the reverence paid to tree, twig, weed, and soil. The pony did not begin cropping at the lush greenery carpeting the ground encircled by the grove. Beneath Lucilla's bare feet, the grass was still soft and dense with the texture of spring growth, atypical from the sharp, bristling dryness common to late summer.  

Here, even the birds who usually sang in the day's closing with sweet song were silent, though Lucilla caught the faint, momentary flutter of beating wings in the upper branches of the elm trees.

All eyes of the onlookers—human, avian, or equine—watched the daughter, wife, and sister of Caesars, mother to a murdered boy, stride with instinctive, stately grace to meet the two priestess descending the steps.  Her back rigid, standing straight with the essence of nobility in her veins, Lucilla and the women locked unwavering, measured gazes.    Both priestesses shared the olive toned, dark-eyed features of the native country-folk. Though not bearing the robust strength of the indigenous peasant women, each Keeper of the Shrine still portrayed a spry, whip-cord leaness, given to a life of outdoor labor.  

"Be welcome, Mother of Romans, to this humble sanctuary," the elder of the priestesses greeted Lucilla in ritual voice. 

The scion of Caesars, gathering the folds of her light blue stola--bound about her waist, under breast, and secured at shoulders, with silk ribbons of spring flushed-pink and summer-green--went to one knee. 

"It is I," Lucilla replied in the practised enunciations of formality, "who stands as servant and emissary in honor for those who harvest this land, so we may all subsist off the labors offered up in the cycle of sowing, planting, and reaping."  Bowing her head, the light cotton veil snapped softly against her cheek in a spontaneously brief, refreshing breeze; Nature's seeming intonation of welcome to the woman greeted as Mother of Romans.  

Glancing up into the ageless authority of the older priestess' gaze, growing darker with the sinking sun, Lucilla realized--despite shared garb, and a common heritage apparent in each woman's large, deep-set eyes and thick brows--their difference in years was the telling factor between the two servants of Diana Nemorensis. _Mother to daughter_, Lucilla reflected somewhere in the back of her mind.  The Keeper of Diana's shrine was an inherited position, passed by mother-right—one of the few places left in the civilised world where men's laws, men's wars and men's power held no sway to more ancient traditions. It would be many more years, however, before the elder priestess' daughter would fully don the cloak of arcane wisdom shining forth from her mother's penetrating orbs. 

As agents of divinity, both women, the elder and the younger, were robed to suit the anonymity of their station.  The linen folds of their gowns, cassocks really, were of deepest indigo, and each woman's head was covered by a square of finest, leaf-green silk.  No jewelry adorned either women at throat, wrist or neck. 

Following the lead of her mother, the younger priestess couldn't quite suppress the quiver in her hands, nor trembling in her voice when she placed the customary kiss of greeting upon Lucilla's cheeks.

Murmuring back the traditional response of introduction to the younger priestess' words, some distant corner of Lucilla's mind quailed for a horrid second. A place in her psyche still retaining a cold, hard rationale, separate from the grief-stricken mother, mourning sister, and heart-sore daughter she'd become, laughed madly, reflecting a taunting revelation. She, a daughter, wife, and sister of Caesars, cajoled into playing this part, patroness of a pastoral rite.  Why this realization ought to have seemed so cruel at that moment, she couldn't fathom. This was custom, expected of her new station as a villa-owner's wife. Since marrying Quintus over two months ago, this pastoral ritual was simply one more role she acted out, a pattern fitting into the sequence of her daily routines. Attempting to familiarize herself with the cyclic rythms of the harvest, she was learning the production and trade of wool, the seasonal storage of grapes for next year's wine yield.

Diana's harvest festival was appearance, nothing more. Yet one more part of the bargain she was meant to fulfill for Quintus in this sham of legal imprisonment, mirroring the wreckage of emotion barricading her soul. 

There was no retreat.

Except to that numb, uncaring part of her mind, observing the world through which she moved each day, passive witness and unfeeling.

From among the gathering of worshippers, a young child emerged, approaching the two priestesses and the kneeling woman, with a poignant caricature of the solemnity the adults around her seemed to be evincing.  The little girl was one of the blonde-haired sisters who had been tossing flower petals along the road earlier, Lucilla noted. Up close, she was not so little, a tall girl pushing nine seasons, quite pretty for her skin was not yet ruined by the sun. Shyly, the young child flashed a quick, tentative smile at the three women, revealing an obvious gap where one of her incisors had been just the past spring. She paused to the right of Lucilla's elbow.  

Holding a large whelk shell between hands barely encompassing the cochlear object, the little girl was really quite overwhelmed, having been avidly informed by her mother not to drop the shell—it was a very ancient and holy object. Unsure what to do next, the child felt, on some subconsious level, the stirring of a faint, throbbing heat reaching out from the shell's insides.  The sensation held her motionless for a moment, thinking of threads being woven wider and wider, into a net, originating from this fossil of a forgotten lake, into the long shadows of the trees, the velvet mauve of twilight, basking the three women before the temple with its eminence. 

For lack of alternatives, she looked to the face of the lovely, sad lady who had become the new mistress of the villa at the beginning of summer, and found no answering guidance in the woman's expressionless visage.  

It was only when a faint clearing of a throat, a subversive nod of a head from the younger priestess toward Lucilla, her eyes shimmering with warm amusement even as the older priestess' mouth twitched, that the girl, quick-witted in her own right, caught on as to how to proceed. Her hands were still shaking in uncertainty, but with renewed purpose, the young girl proferred the shell to the appropriate recipient with solemn reverence. Even Lucilla, from her insipid perspective, reaching out to take the brightly painted object adorned with shades of red-ochre and green malachite, was touched by the girl's effort to maintain a youthful dignity worthy of a sacrosanct ritual.  

The hollowed out spiraling interior of the shell rattled with evidence of various contents that had been placed as symbolic sacrifice in thanksgiving for the completion of the bountiful gathering of crops:  the sprig of a grape vine, the seed head of the last wheat-sheaf cut down for that summer, multiple ornaments of gold and silver which clattered in the calcited sides of the whelk.  The jewels, Lucilla had offered herself, a collection of rings and earrings she saw no more need for, as such decorative displays of adornment seemed ostentacious to her new position as a villa-wife.  Her only precious gem she wore nowadays was a silver band about her finger—a reminder of her marriage.  

The importance of attending to appearances.

Examining the shell, only half listening to the words the older priestess was repeating,"--sowers, planters, reapers, preservers of ancient tradition!  Guardians of vine and sheaf, the fruits your fields yield at the end of the season of ripening are witness to the continued prosperity of our land and Her people--," Lucilla could only think that there was something hard and painful in all of this. The ebullient atmosphere pervading the rituals of harvest-time mocked her own loss, her eyes resting on that silver band about her left ring-finger, symbol of Quintus' love. A knot formed in her throat she tried to swallow past, a physical manifestation of her own pain.  

A shifting of wind whirled gently through the trees, rustling leaves in the upper-branches, and carrying the piquant freshness of the Mount Alba's craterd lakes, and coniferous trees, far above the lowland foothills of the grove this little shrine occupied.  

Her memory wandered, like that wind, unwilling, but unhindered, down its own inner-terrain, recalling the tenderness with which another man who had loved her once, the only one who had ever commanded the inner corridors of her heart and mind equally, had spoken.  _You laughed more._  Words, for one moment, awakening a possibility of hope, a reason to believe, however briefly, for the future.  

For the life of her son. 

A boy, now dead, four months gone.  A bare memory; nothing more than a pile of ashes stored away in an urn of the family catacombs, interred outside of the Eternal City.  

Lucilla, never having risen from her place before the two Keepers of Diana's shrine, set in this hallowed grove, stirred, realizing at some point she was meant to kiss the sides of the ancient whelk shell.

Which must have been now, given the way each of the two priestesses, and the blonde-haired girl to her side, were looking at her with puzzled expectation.  

With a small indication of belated apology in her eyes, Lucilla mimicked careful reverence, bringing the shell up to her face.  Her brow furrowed in mild curiosity, wondering if the wind had suddenly picked up, resonating in the hollow spirals of the shell's interior, or if she was hearing an abnormally loud echo of blood rushing to her head.

On the age-smoothed surface of the blood-red and grass-green tones of the shell's painted sides, she placed her lips, the thrumming that had been muted only seconds ago, suddenly increasing in pitch, drowning the voice of the older priestess which had lifted in tones of fervent devotion.

"From Rhea Silvia's hands, with Egeria's own lips has this gift from the sea blessed our shrine, and the land upon which all of life depends!  She who is guardian of the birthing mother, and reaper in the dark harvest of souls, long ago promised that we--her children, her worshippers, her blessed and beloved--shall never want of food, clothing, nor shelter—these things which Earth herself yields up for our benefit. Consecrated is this shell to the Grove of Diana _Nemorensis, just as your lives, harvesters of the land, are consecrated to Italia…,"_

Lucilla strained to hear more of what the older priestess intoned through the sudden sensation of a large, invisible hand cupping the inner-most part of her soul and gently netting it. She hadn't moved, yet the world about her crashed and roared as though she'd been swept up in a wind squall. A panicked butterfly, the daughter of Caesars was completely enmeshed, bound to that piece of sea-scrap in her hands. The shell was warm, she thought initially, from her touch, realizing with a shock, it was emanating its own, low thrumming vibration—a candescence of wind, breath, and pulse-beat. 

And she flew.

Beyond and outside herself, at that moment, everything and everyone was captured in the essence of the present—a motif upon a frescoed wall adorning the rooms of Quintus' villa. The scene played out below her: the humble shrine, the small wood, nestled in the dusky light of sunset, surrounded by the foothills, above which the volcanic-born lakes of the Nemi and the Albano, in their alpine domains, caught the last rays of sun like flowing copper. Her own person kneeling, suppliant, before the two priestesses guarding the dark entrance to their temple's inner realm. Caught by the blazing infernos atop the torch-lit pylons, Lucilla—above and outside herself—saw the young girl, her fellow collection of country-worhippers, the pony, Sekt-aten, all bathed in the orange-gold light of flame.

Everyone—Everything—was awash with an odd spirit-halo, spreading, silvery and thread-like, to each individual, garlanded man, flower-crowned women, and fidgeting child. A web of scintillating wonder, the light continued, extending to the trees, the pony, the finches in the high branches, and the fish of the river in the valley below, quickening toward the countryside, and the four directions of infinity.

And at its epicenter, wielding the source of the spindling, glowing thread--weaver of life's seed and spirit breath--was Lucilla, grasping the mineral-stained whelk shell. In that kneeling form, her hands around the warm vibration of the shell, her mind far beyond any boundary of mere matter, substance of human confinement, Lucilla was overwhelmed in an essence of _Other__._

 Her spirit sped on with that growing, widening web, flowing like the Tiber's tributary down by the sheep-fold in the lowland ravine, merging into the wider expanse of the wild-country approaching the foothills of the Apennines.  Her being breathed, the shift of a bird's wings, the hawk circling high above Mount Cumae, overlooking the cobalt waters of the Bay of Naples.  The tension of the mountain goat, grazing about its lofty heights of mountain glens and pure lakes, cautioned to absolute stillness by the scent of a wolf moving through the brush, tugged her soul with a primordial fear, a remembrance of a time when humans were the hunted.  She became the tides of Gaia, feeling the dew-ridden grass upon her belly as she, the serpent, slithered over the bracken-strewn ground of southern forests.

From earth to wind-swept reaches, her being was carried ever further, a feather upon the breath of the gods, the argent web expanding, encompassing, out and beyond her soul.  Ecstasy and impulse, instinct and intuition—all competing in her kneeling physicality, located in that small grove cradled by the rolling foothills and fertile flatlands of Latium's countryside.  Her sense was filled with the pure vitality of the wind, blowing with ceaseless direction upon the Via Appia, north to the heights of Rome's Seven Hills, from the eternal winding of the Tiber, bathing the banks of the lower City with her sluggish waters, and guided by that spirit-web to unite all things. Isolated in a wealthy city-resident's courtyard, the ripening fruit of the fig contained the same essence of life, the ever-prescient shadow of mortality, stealing the last living breath of a young mother.  Crying out in pain and triumph for the bloody exultation of the newborn emerging between her thighs, Lucilla—not Lucilla—felt the young woman's life-force slip as the babe sounded a wailing, feeble cry of abiding humanity. 

This shimmering connection of energy inhabiting all minds, united the scintillating aura that flowed from stream to rock, ant to badger, from hare to hawk, the breath of wind which became air in men's lungs, and captured her soul.  Ensnared in this force of unified life, her mind sought to assert itself away from this resounding journey of _Other__, shifting reality back to her own presence—kneeling in the hallowed grove, attempting in fear and desperate outrage, to proclaim her mortal sorrow_

            _I am not this!  I am no Mother of Romans…no mother at all! You took that last thing from me! Death is what I have left to offer!_

            Despite the immensity of Presence inhabiting her awareness, the power and infinite mysteries the _Other_ illuminated in her soul, Lucilla could only think It recoiled—as ridiculous as the analogy sounded.  Her spirit had been carried along, a piece of drift wood awash in the great ocean of the Universe, when the _Other_, responding to the mortal woman's opposition, severed this buoyant, silver weaving of concentric existences. Like a stirring crack of lightening, Lucilla's spirit plummeted with physical force back into the vessel of her own body. 

Her breath caught when she jerked her hands upward in a small, shuddering spasm, the jewels in the whelk rattling with the force of her motion. Reeling inwardly from a sudden disorientation, her eyes flew open without ever having been aware she closed them. 

The daughter and sister of Caesars looked about the grove with dizzied alarm, taking in the absence of the little girl who'd been by her side earlier, the rural worshippers of the villa still gathered. The torch light from the stacked pillars illuminated either side of the stairs, flitting over the faces of worshippers with shadow and red-gold flame, the only source of light in an otherwise full cloak of night.  Still only half-comprehending, Lucilla's mind was filled with the image of a silvery thread, expanding across the distances above and beyond earth, sky, and sea.  Her inner-eye, seeing herself, focused on the whelk shell cradled in her slender fingers, kneeling in humble obeisance before the stoic vestiges of ash, oak and elm—ancient, silent witnesses to the play of men's custom and ritual.  

The daughter and sister of Caesars heard, as from afar, the voice of the younger priestess fill the grove with pristine sweetness, bidding women from the simple assembly before the shrine to enkindle their own torches in a last rite, symbol of the sun's seeding regenerative powers. A firebrand passed amongst the women of the small crowd.  In the multiplying corona of flame-light radiating against the grove's surrounding darkness, Lucilla caught the gaze of the older priestess resting on her kneeling form, a sympathetic intuition in the depth-less wells of the older woman's eyes. The Keeper of the Grove reached out with a graceful unfolding of fingers to take the shell from Lucilla, her single nod indicating for Marcus Aurelius' daughter to rise. 

  "Go forth in joy, people of the land, true preservers of Her labor and Her gifts," the younger daughter pronouncing a final blessing upon the collection of peasant revelers. "The offering of the vine and wheat has been accepted, and the Lady's blessing rests upon you. Her favor can be costly, for life rests as much in death as it does in birth, but her renewal shall manifest, unfailing, in each cycle of the year. She is guardian, not only of the sacred places and wild animals, but of the suckling pig and the lambs of the field, the new-borne at the mother's breast. The season of ripening is past, the season of reflection before us, but in that time lies the season of richness.  So go forth, and celebrate children of the land! Celebrate!"  

Released by those last words, the gathering of bucolic worshippers aroused, all at once, into a collective swelling of animated joy.  The parade of the villa's peasants moved with common purpose out from the small wood, the women's torches lighting the way back to the dirt road, winding down from the foothills, to the valley and pastures below. Men and women laughed, whooped, shouted in the rapture of the moment, tossing garlands into the air, children, at long last, free to skip about, and run on ahead of the slower adult procession.  Someone had brought pan-pipes—probably one of the sheep-herders--and the random assortment of field-hands, blacksmiths, woolers, herders, household servants, scattered about the undulating line of firelight. Men grabbed at the closest female creature not holding aloft a torchlit brand—child or woman—to swing her about in the eternal rhythm of dance and joy.

Lucilla, intending to mount her pony, following in the wake of the villa-dwellers, was paused in mid-step by the elder priestess' voice cutting to the center of her heart.

"Sometimes it is difficult, Mother of Romans, to see the golden bounty of summer's fruit when looking upon the ice-encased branches of the orchard in winter."  

Like a startled doe, Marcus Aurelius' daughter stood frozen, her back to the shrine, and the two women upon the steps.  The sounds of the festival-makers' merriment carried in the distance by the wind echoing to eventual silence, the weaving line of the torches swallowed by the night, among the bluffs at the foot of the Apennines. 

The daughter and sister of Caesers did not turn immediately to meet the ageless serenity of Diana's priestess, her eyes, instead, falling upon the form of Sekt-aten holding the reigns of the pony.  The Nubian woman stood tall in her long-limbed elegance, her skin darker than the smothering shadows, cloaked in a simple white sheath of linen, belted at the waist with gold.  Staring back at Lucilla, Sekt-aten's ebony gaze reflected the inferno of the pylons, pillared bonfires, blazing wardens before the yawning entrance of the shrine. 

A sudden, resounding enlightenment shattered through Lucilla's cognition--the awareness this woman, her handmaid from a distant, desert land, assigned to watch her actions during those months of banishment on Capri, was something more than the daughter of a minor village-head from a nameless hamlet lost amongst red sandstone ruins.  

A moment of unspoken fear drowned Lucilla's ever-present sadness, observing the same arcane knowledge she had glimpsed in the older priestess' orbs, shining forth from Sekt-aten's midnight-hued eyes. 

She was surrounded, outnumbered by a pack of wolves, these two priestesses and her handmaid, a doe in truth, cut off from the larger protection of the herd—isolated and alone to face whatever fate held in store.  

Still facing the Nubian woman, Lucilla addressed the elder priestess of Diana in a rasping bitterness, containing, if not fully mastering her initial, irrational urge to flee. "Rome is a different place now, Lady of the Grove.  A place where innocent children are sacrificed upon the blades of men, struggling for ruler-ship of an Empire decaying at its core from corruption and greed.  What bounty this festival ensures will come from the revelries of country-folk, and not from me.  I have performed my part, as required.  I am weary, and now wish for my bed."

            At the edge of light where the torch-flame melted into darkness, Sekt-aten patted the pony's neck with mindless motion, the animal snorting softly into her hand, the dark-skinned woman's eyes never leaving Lucilla's face.  Fathomless, the Nubian's expression was bleak, possessing some sad fore-knowledge of this encounter's inevitable outcome.  

            Into the hushed silence of the night, the blazing crackle of the pylons' bonfires, the older priestess' voice rang out. "The one true duty you ought to perform in service to this land you deny yourself and the man you have taken as your husband!"

Words that snapped the pall of fear that had been holding Lucilla stationary, whipping around to face the two women who were Keepers of the Shrine. "How dare you accuse me of duty untended!" advancing upon them in a lambasting of naked pain, her voice breaking in a choked sob.  "My father, my brother, and my…my son, Lady!  My son! They have all died, were burned and now lie far beyond the cursed grip of Roma Mater!  Tell me," she demanded, shouting with all of the command of royal grief and pent-up sorrow.  "Tell me what good has been wrought by their duty, except death!" her hand clenching at air upon her last word, as though reaching for some sort of support, stopping just short of the granite steps.

The younger priestess, one step below her mother, and so closer to the lashing of mourning wrath the daughter of the Antonii portrayed, looked up to the elder woman, seeking reassurance to maintain her place in the face of such uncontained grief.  The mother placed a hand on the younger woman's shoulder--for encouragement, comfort, or momentary reminder of their own status, Lucilla could not have guessed.  Daughter of the Antonii, she only knew, with each withering pronouncement she flung at their feet, the elder priestess seemed to have taken on the added bearing of nobility.  

And Lucilla suddenly remembered this woman, who watched her from the entrance of the small, pillared shrine with compassionate detachment, was claimant to a heritage as royal, and far more ancient, than even that contained in the veins of the slender, proud descendent of Caesars.  

            _Deiphobe__, Amalthea, Herophile, Demophile, Taraxandra…_

            "In death, child of Caesers, every woman across the Empire is united in her duty—to remember and to grieve.  It is men's place to give their lives in service to a land and a Dream, and so it is ours to tell of it for the future generations.  You believe your losses to be more profound, perhaps, for they encompass the deaths of royal blood, but truly Lucilla, do you think the country-wife's loss to be any less when her husband is killed in a mining accident, and there is no one to till the fields for the coming spring, or the artisan's widow to suffer less when all of her children are taken in plague, for there will no longer be anyone to look after her when her bones grow decrepit and her sight fails, her step falters," admonished the Keeper of Diana' Shrine. 

The older priestess was not unmoved by the younger woman's display of tortured grief, all that she had suffered for the sake of Roma Aeturna. But a grim sense of purpose sustained the Keeper's own duty—to this shrine, this land, the goddess she had served since she had been younger than her own daughter.  

            Lucilla's jaw clenched, and her chin rose perceptibly in the face of the priestess' harsh words, but she said nothing, her rigid, quivering pride evident despite the turmoil of her emotions, accentuated in the shifting light of the flames.  

            "You many consider yourself above such rustic superstitions, Lady," the older priestess continued, "but the people of the land whisper of wicked omens that haven't been seen since the time of the early Republic when Publius Licinius was _Pontifex_ Maximus_.  The weather holds fair, and Earth bears her crops to feed the land in the traquility of the seasons' cycling, but there have been rumors from the highland villages of strange lights appearing in the night sky above mountain valleys, and swine-breeders speak of pigs born with two heads, and to the south, farmers say their grain ears having been poisoned with the color of blood, causing babies to be born with missing limbs and half-mouths."_

            "In more ancient times, we followed the same customs of the tribes we have now deemed barbarian—the life blood of the king was sacrificed for the sake of the country and Her people.  So it was, omens of ill-becoming were staved off…for a time, at least."

            Lucilla felt an ice-cold shiver of fear split to the very core of her soul, forcing words past numb lips.  "I saw, for myself, Caeser's blood spilled upon the sands of the Coliseum. Was Her blood-lust not appeased, Keeper of the Grove, by the death of my brother, the proclaimed ruler of the Empire, and life of my son who was the heir-apparent?  What more could She possibly want?"

            The older priestess' eyes flickered, grim, seeming to swallow, in their dark depths, all light afforded from the torches of the pylons before the small temple's entrance.  "Do you think the blood of mere sheep sufficient when the price of rescinding the atrocities of your brother's reign can only be paid by the life of the King Stag, daughter of Marcus Aurelius?"

            Words echoed with the sound of rustling leaves in the soft breeze shifting through the tree-tops of the sanctified grove.  _She retains a jealous hold upon the lives of her favorites, wishing them to come back to the eternal darkness of her realm…_

             The younger priestess, on the step below that which her mother stood upon, glanced up, visibly puzzled by the enigmatic words articulated between the other two woman.  

Lucilla, however, knew very well, the underlying meaning of the elder priestess' utterance; considered, with another inward shudder, she did not wish to discover the dark rites this woman practiced, uncovering such secrets.

            Amidst the crackling of the bonfires atop the pylons, casting an orange nimbus into the night, Lucilla felt something pass between herself and the Keeper of the Grove. An unspoken beckoning that went beyond words, to the deeper essence of mind and instinct, communicated in the wind gusting with momentary furiousness, to flare the fires upon the flat-topped colonnades, their infernal strength beacons, as was this nameless priestess, to the realms of the vast underworld.  

The elder priestess chose then, to climb the last rise to the shrine's entrance, followed by her daughter, turning just before their figures were engulfed by the eternal shadows. "Where the floor descends towards the very back of the temple's interior, the sacred spring rises forth.  There, my daughter and I shall await your coming."  The Keeper's words were hardly louder than the quiet trembling of the leaves in the overhead branches, the heavy sigh of the mare from behind, Sekt-aten's muted breathing, yet they carried the imperative of divine command.

            In the light breeze playing across the small grove, licking the flames of the pylons to dance with eerie patterns about the clearing, Lucilla strode, after a moment, back toward Sekt-aten, crossing the short span to where her handmaid patiently waited with the pony.  

            The Nubian's slant-eyed exoticness seemed accentuated in the darkness of the grove's shifting light, where, at the edge of torchlight's perimeter, the Nubian woman stood, poised—one might have thought—between the world of twilight and shade.  

"If you have the courage for it," Lucilla spoke to her servant softly, reaching out to pet the gray-dappled pony's velvet muzzle, "you may want to start back to the villa."  The beast whuffled into her hands, the mare's ears twitching back and forth, catching the sounds of the summer's night, too faint for a mere human to detect. 

"If the words of the country-folk are to be believed, you ought to be safe, and should suffer no insult to your person on a night so sanctified as this one.  I do not know," the daughter and sister of Caesars finished, glancing warily back over her shoulder to the infinite depths of the small temple's entrance, "how long what I am to do will take."

            In her deep, smooth voice, Sekt-aten replied stubbornly, "No, Lady. I shall wait for you here."  Simple words punctuated by a short shake of her head, causing intricate braids bound by lapis and jade beads to clatter with a glasslike tinkling.  

            "Why?"  Lucilla's bluntly stated curiousity.

Sekt-aten's almond-slanted eyes, their whites illuminated in the torch-lit darkness, studied Lucilla for what seemed countless moments. It was a look Lucilla had difficulty holding, for the compassion it reflected, and an understanding that went unstated between the two women.  

Finally, in a muted, articulate voice, her posture unconciously stately, her mien reflecting a pride of queens and priestesses, the Nubian answered:  "In my own land, Lady, many years ago, I was trained as a vessel of the gods." 

There were many things about this woman Lucilla did not know—a dark-skinned child of a red, desert land where incessant winds reshaped the sands of the earth into landscapes as different as each new dawn. A forgotten land of forgotten empires, and unforgiving sunlight, ancient before the painted tombs of the Etruscans housed the bodies of Rome's predecessors. 

Lucilla did know, however, in the months following Lucius' murder, during the banishment on Capri, and now, her self-imposed exile to this country-villa as Quintus' wife, her dreams had been plagued by nightmares trying to find her son in the halls of the Imperial palace, hearing him cry out to her helplessly, and never able to reach him. It was Sekt-aten who embraced her, rocked her as Lucilla wept her sorrow into the other woman's breast, the Nubian singing the last of the Antonii—this broken parody of nobility—to sleep in a language she knew not a word of, but sounded more ancient than the birth of the world.  

A cold shiver went down Lucilla's spine upon her handmaid's next words, an uncomfortable shudder that caused goose-bumps to rise over her arms, and prickle the hairs on the back of her neck.  "I do not know by what rituals your people court the favor of the High Ones, but I can tell you this--entrances as that before you, going to that shrine, are openings to the worlds where we of the living do not walk. _Katabasis_, I think your people call it--the decent to hell."

_And I haven't a bough of mistletoe to guide me back to the world of daylight and the living. _

The heat of the summer evening did not stave off the cold dread that had begun to fill her gut, but Lucilla, ever defiant, inquired with a steady voice, "Will I die?"

A scarce beat of silence passed. Long enough for the daughter of Marcus Aurelius to read, clear through the dancing shadows of the fires atop the flattened colonnades, marring the enclosed setting of the grove into patterns of grotesque silhouettes and red-gold blaze, the sad truth in Sekt-aten's eyes, her sibilant voice.

"A mother's labor is her turmoil; her child, the blessing.  The gifts of Her womb can be the same for the spirit as they are for the body if you are strong enough to sustain the truth of your choices.  If you wallow in the condemnation of your life's path, then it may well be, you emerge on the morrow muttering the words of the insane, and convulsing, foaming at the mouth, like the mad."

With some feeling, then, unanticipated, but genuine, Sekt-aten reached out to grasp Lucilla's hands, the pony's reigns still in her fingers.  "No matter your fate, there is always a death of sorts, be it in body or in mind. I would not have you emerge alone, though, Lady, from the depths of that sepulcher path you are to walk.  If I can not guide you, then I shall at least wait for you."

For a moment, Lucilla felt that hard, hollow feeling come back into her throat, and she swallowed harshly, mastering this sudden tenderness, squeezing the other woman's hands tightly before dropping them.  Unasked for, and unexpected, this loyalty, and she did not think she deserved such devotion—had hardly acted in a manner, over the last few months, which ought to have elicited any form of fealty from the Nubian woman.  

She said none of this, however, only bowing her head once with slow dignity—one queen to another—gratitude and a strange, sad acceptance replacing the unease from moments before.  "I thank you," said the daughter of Marcus Aurelius, and the descendant of the Antonii turned from the Nubian, her pony, at the edge of the torch-lit perimeter in the small clearing of that hallowed grove.  

Traversing with graceful pride, the distance to the stone steps of the shrine, and ascending the low flight in queenly rigidity, Lucilla's demeanor displayed her royal courage. Courage overcoming the sound of her heart pounding loudly in her ears, the light from pylons she passed at the shrine's entrance falling away to darkness, and she stepped across the colonnaded threshold to the infinite, cavernous night.


	7. The Voice of the Sybil

**Chapter 7:  The Voice of the Sybil**

"As the scroll of time unfolds, it will shrink me down, melt more of my flesh, shorten my bones, melt my marrow until, from this still large body that you now see, I shall have shrunk to a tiny, weightless, wisp of a _thing_…What will be left of me then?  What will be left to me?  For I shall dwindle down to a nothingness alive, wind down to an unrecognizable shade of my formerly robust self.  No eye will know me then.  What comfort then…**_This comfort:  the world shall hear my voice.  The Fates have allowed it.  The Eumenides have granted me this."_**

Quoted out of Ovid's _Metamorphosis--book XIV_

**********

            From early on in the ritual, the heavy scent of incense and myrrh, the pungent perfume of saffron-spice, filled her nostrils, the smoke rising from the libation vessels where the thorny, writhing branches of hawthorn smoldered among clusters of goatsweed--yellow-beaded flowers desiccated to raisin-like drops of carbonized plant material--purified the air of evil, maligning spirits.  In the dark, shadowed chamber of this mephitic, underground spring, deciphering what was true to her senses became an increasingly difficult task, inhaling the swirling vapors, vision blurred, bending darkness into cohesive form.  A haze mingled with the smell of damp earth and peaty sulfur, wrapping around votary bowels with amorphous, wraithlike fingers, misty steam rolling across the glasslike opacity of the subterranean pool, refracting flickering coals.  She could not help imagining the shades of those who had gone before her emerging from corners, obscured by the gloom.  

The ambience of this underground kingdom echoed to an age lost in geological memory. A time when the shifting layers of liquefied mantle, far below the earth's crust, had buckled under the thermal pressure of magma, breaking through yielding bedrock, layers of limestone, and solidified volcanic ash, in an explosion of underground water--aquifers feeding these cratered wells.  

And later—much later—feeding humanity's belief in earthen-concealed pools acting as gateways to the dead.  

Pools like this hidden pond, surrounded by obsidian, and encased underneath layers of rock and acidic soil, formed long ago, and ancient beyond human memory, preserved in universal conscience as a place of worship.  

Of death.

And rebirth.

For Lucilla, time grew indistinct, slowing while she continued to breathe the near noxious odors of various herbs, moist loam, and damp rock.  The ceaseless chanting of women's voices echoing throughout the underground chamber, buzzed in her head like a repetitious, sweet chord upon the lyre.  Motion, too, grew deliberate, no longer entirely under her conscious control, her dazed attention focused, entranced, upon the rippling, watery images refracted by the glasslike opacity of the pool.  

Three forms had gathered around the submerged spring: the elder priestess, her daughter, and Lucilla—crone, maiden, and mother.  Cycles as eternal as the earth itself, details of their separate features rippling, reflected by the mirror-like, black waters, transmuting into figures adorned with beaded necklaces, chains of cowry shells dangling between full, bare breasts, and pleated, flounced skirts of felt-hair.  Inky black waters blurred once more, revealing a more antiquated memory of three women surrounding the pool, soft animal skins draped around the proud swell of hips in a fringe of thin tethers, imprinted with sacred signs of the elements and Nature's creatures.  Women's arms—female arms—firm with muscle, twisted in a dancing flurry, spinning about this shadow-hidden pool, skin glowing in firelight, tattooed in spiraling patterns--flowing water, shifting winds, and the helical designs of the Mother's essence.  

In every age, the worshippers were always women, their chanted mantra, an intonation preserved since the first nomadic hunters crossed the great glaciers in small bands, escaping the frigid lock of the north. A note gone sharp with the dying squeal of a suckling piglet, as Lucilla—fascinated, disgusted--sliced through its fragile throat, ending the creature's life in a moist, bubbling eruption of blood and viscous warmth.  The sanguine juice passed through her fingers, collecting in the hollowed out scapula of a virgin heifer, sacrificed the same way earlier that morning. 

From the scapula, the blood was mixed with honey and wine, meant for the tongues of the dead to lap up so they might take shape in the world of physical form and being.  A concoction fragrant with traces of mandrake and wormwood, dangerous herbs said to speed the spirit on its journey to the afterlife—a concoction the daughter of Marcus Aurelius hadn't known was meant to be poured down her throat.  Lucilla resisted, shaking her head furiously, fighting the firm grip holding her chin in place, gagging, forced to swallow or choke up the grisly tincture. The never faltering tone hit an ear-shattering crescendo, her neck contracting only once, and the mixture of blood and herbs flowed down her throat like the slime-ridden fingers of the dead, carrying the last bit of her consciousness not clouded with scented smoke, darkness, and the sonorous chanting, along with it.   

What followed was indescribable--an uncontrollable tremor that might have been her body, the quaking of Gaia Herself, and a tortured, voiceless upheaval.  In agony, she felt her body as earthen rock, sundered by an upwelling of lava, or the crashing of tidal waves upon fragile sand; violent seizures through the very fabric of her muscles and nerves.  She was helpless, had no control over the involuntary spasms jolting her limbs. 

            Then, after a protracted time of agonizing affliction, there was stillness.  

And darkness…so deep, a quiet so seemingly vast, only a tomb meant to house the dead could have rivaled the gloomy vacuity of this new arena in her soul. 

            Silence. 

Stillness.  

And…

A beat, drumming, soft and distant, growing louder with each stroke, swallowed by an onrush of otherworldly wind, whilst simultaneously engulfing the entirety of her awareness.    

            An awareness absorbed into the rhythm of blood thrusting through her veins; the gentle _whooshing_ of the fetus breathing the waters of its amniotic inhabitance; the shifting rivers of magma flowing beneath the crusts of solid ground and the endless pull of tides breaking upon the boundary dividing land and sea, all subject before the invisible forces of astral bodies—moon, sun, stars.  Lucilla's soaring mind faltered, trying to stretch and expand, attempting to grasp the images flooding her sense—specks of crystalline light scattered across the sky, more numerous than the sands of the earth.

            Her physical form was now submerged in the depths of the cavernous pool, cradled in the cool spring beneath the small shrine, but within the depth of her being, she had arrived upon a precipice.  A precarious point where she, sustained in her ethereal journey by this otherworldly wind--ceaseless, vibrating pulse, thrumming through her mind--had come to a barrier dividing the great threshold between mortal knowing and immortal consciousness.  

She suffered a moment's indecision. 

To hold back, remain balanced forever on the edge of the Great Well, ignorant of the mystery lying beyond? 

Or to jump, delving into the darkness of the cauldron, swallowed like the surrounding night beyond the sacred grove.  

Utter stillness and waiting. A minute, several minutes, days, months, years--there was no concept of time passing.    

            And then…

She leapt.

            Over the edge…breath, sound, vision, sensation—all things that gave essence to human life—were sucked out of her, smothered in a sudden burning, painful white brightness, to singe away remnants of physical perception.  She knew, in that moment, what it was to be the fall of rushing water plunging over the steep mountain-side; the tidal wave crashing with deathly force upon the land, and the lightening bolt streaking down from the heavens, rendering its scorching voltage upon the ground.  In her mind, in her soul, she felt her physicality—the confines of flesh, bone, and cognition—to be an imprisonment, needing to be shed so as to grasp this _intoxia_ of spirit and synergistic energy she was becoming.  With her sliding, uncontrolled decent into the Well, the tunnel-force of wind streaming past her senses, came the accompaniment of a thousand, nay million, voices babbling the passage of humanity into a simultaneous communion of death, birth, time and mortality.  

And Lucilla--no longer entirely Lucilla--saw as she had only once before, standing on that brink of ripping exaltation between life and death, struggling to bring forth her son. No longer with the eyes of humanity, she Perceived Universe possessing the vision of Immortals. 

            On and on she fell, until her meteoric plunge began to slow at long last, the crashing falls, an arrowing onrush of water, transforming her disembodied journey into the rough rapids of a river, smoothing, finally, to a basin of stillness.  

Peace. 

Rest--like the pool cradling her body in its sable-mirrored waters. 

            Suspended between eternity and other-vision, she examined a great void her meager human-perception barely comprehended.  Momentary, the vague memory of a nameless poet she once studied as a young girl swirled through her mind, words describing the vast wasteland before her—all about her--_the_ _third kingdom… shadows amongst shadows… the countless hordes of dead generations twitter and flit.  Floating in this darkness-- endless and timeless—beyond temporal constraint—to Lucilla's newly expanded sense, it was not shadows amongst shadows she observed; rather, the innumerable silver threads of soul-light sparkling across an infinite darkness.  Threads woven into patterns upon the Universe, scintillating beams of light that spiraled about themselves, following a cochlear path like that of the shell she had held in her hands.  They would twine, limbs of ivy climbing to the sky, then round back and repeat, branching into parallel rays of light, splicing as sunshine through clouds. In the womb of her mind, these soul-threads were a bright weaving, whirling in the way of women's scarves during a dance, seducing her awareness to merge with the twinkling, cosmic tapestry--a realm of the infinite reflected in the dark abode of the pool. _

             Gradually, watching the interlacing, shimmering filaments, she finally grasped, vaguely, that these were more than the sources of life-force which bonded each living thing to another, but the congruence of time and history progressing since the dawn of….

_Cosmos, her mind stumbling, trying to fathom the concept. _

            Seeing.  Vision.  And what vision showed her was an expanse of infinite black, volatile twinkling specks of light, diamonds set into a rippling ocean. 

_Stars, something in her mind recognized.  _

A curious impression of buoyancy came to Lucilla in that moment, her soul borne up on the swishing beat of Otherworldly wings.  Vision changed, her sight no longer imprisoned within the crude matter of human form, a series of scenes flowing through her inner-eye.  The visual impressions followed, one upon the next, lending the sense of a passing stream, or coming swift and abrupt, flashing with the rapidity of lightening across a night-sky.  

A distant past, a history molded by the mirage of humanity, emerged to the forefront of Lucilla's astute psyche. Faces bearing attributes of separate, unique origins—ethnicity--evolving natures of custom, belief, and culture.  Diverse and differentiated, they covered an expanse from east to west, wending through the ceaseless progress of time—peoples united by death, grief, sorrow, joy, ecstasy, and the numerous tragedies, shortfalls, and vanities, the journey of humanity forming an uneven stumbling of achievement and failure.  

Transcendent, her perception reeling, attempting to wrap her mind about concepts and mysteries she could only just grasp a fringe of, Lucilla was losing her sense of Self. 

She was soaring. 

            The interminable beat of wings swept her Vision across temporal distance, spanning geographical reaches, speeding her spirit across the great Sea of Grass.  Viewing it the way a hawk, far above the earth sees the land—broad and limitless—stretching from the snow-capped heights of the Western ranges, bounded by the dense, virgin forests of the north, to invade the intractable deserts of the East. 

            The Sea of Grass, the steppe, where sky-father and earth-mother ruled the hearts and minds of nomadic humans and their beasts, subjected to the arid, merciless seering of parched summers, and the unforgiving lash of winter's bite. 

            Here, then, Vision slowed for a moment—endless moment. Within Lucilla's perception of being, images formed into sequential patterns of meaning, interspersed still, about that timeless tapestry of interwoven, silver threads, abstract thought refined into physical sight.

She watched.

            She watched on a night when the wind carried harsh and cold, pure and stinging, rippling the grass like waves across a great, limitless ocean, undulating patterns beneath that diamond studded domain, stars scattered across the never-ending sky. Stars, falling to earth, final destination after a transit of celestial origin, crossing distances too great for mere human minds to comprehend.  Stars, burning out in a twinkling flare, leaving a streak of after-light, a signal of divinity imprinted upon a nameless man's mind.  

            A man of ancient, shamanistic ritual, versed in the craft of metal and earth, shaping with hammer, molding, coaxing sky-alloy amidst the chant of holy words, a release of burning gases, and sputtering flame, heat that could make a man bleed.  Molten lava, like earth's blood, glowed with infernal brilliance, heating with fire, cooling with water, reshaping and repeating—land, crust and sea had been so borne ageless millennia ago.  

This too, was a birth of sorts, the holy words committing the object he shaped with his striking hammer, his blazing flame, and soothing water, to the original elements of creation.  To the cycles of life and death--transformation.  

Lucilla, her incorporeal presence hovering like a ghost, witness to a night lost in a web of the past, watched in voiceless puzzlement, the swift fall of a blade severing the noble head of equine royalty, king amongst the horses of heaven, sacrificed, and the blood collected into a bowl of glazed clay.  Stallion-blood mixed with that of a maiden's first sanctified moon-flow, seething, bubbling over embers and coals, to meld with liquefied metal. 

            Transformation.

In a furious hiss of steam, the last flare of sparks from the falling hammer, the final wave of heat from this newly molded object dissipates in a flickering of after-glow, leaving in its darkened, cooling wake, the birth of a sword.  Like the setting sun, this thing of sky-metal and iron smolders, blood and gold, a deadly scimitar borne, held aloft by the shaman-priest in triumph, a word hurled up to the sky from whence it came, a final consecration to an oath that only those worthy of its making should wield it.  Deadly, beautiful scimitar, driven into the earth with which sky-metal was united, a final pledge this weapon of impenetrable luster, metallic power and brilliance will promise triumph to the wielder.  A weapon, not of mindless war, but of justice—a tool of defense, a tenant of civilized people attempting to guard remnants of their existence. 

            Time progresses, and Vision changes.

Lucilla felt her inner-sense shift once more--the essence of a gull taking flight, or the knowledge of night changing to day at that moment when the sun rises just over a distant horizon.  

              A barrage of sound, the scream of horses and the tearing of wind on a storm-swept, thundercloud dark night invade Lucilla's expanded being. Images are blurred despite the awareness of motion, chaos somewhere in the background—a scene of horror as clarity asserts itself, and she views an inferno of burning buildings, destruction, embers and ash falling upon mud, the spilt blood of men and beast seeping into the ground, partners to the cold, driving rain.  

Her perception, now, is centralized upon the Sword, her knowledge, that of the elements contained in its make-up--a hilt of finest ivory, plated with gold and lapis, bound by electrum. An awareness of waiting, of rest, belonging to this blade's metallic soul, through a timeless hibernation of stillness, a blade of iron and sky-metal imprisoned in the calm bedding of rock and hardened earth. Until…

Freedom! A warrior's hand, large, strong, thick-fingered, tearing the scimitar of sky-metal and earth-blood from its long-settled home of stone.  She gasps at the power of the man vying against Sword, his downward push, a massive heave, and a snarl of enraged fury!  A man exalting in his primordial war-cry, singing the Blade to a long awaited sweetness of completion, finally bound to its rightful wielder, in the midst of desperation, and that chaotic back-drop of lashing rain, thunder, and licking flames.  

Scene and sense faded into darkness, and Lucilla could feel her being taking to flight yet again. 

Shift, and image pervaded her mind—momentary. Time passes, communicated by an impression of winter snows melting into puddles, warmed by the emerging strength of the turning year.  Watery warmth heralds the death of icicles encasing a tree branch, and frees frozen streams, the insistence of an approaching spring. Her Vision again takes that of the spirit-sight, broad and encompassing, the eagle, flying high above a wind-bitten barren plain, snow covered hills of grey rock and dead moss.  

            The pallor of winter upon the terrain casts a lurid glow over a swarm of men vying for supremacy against their foes, covering a distance wider than three Coliseums.   Spears fall with a hail of arrows; the heavy clash of sword upon shield detectable whilst the mortal screams of pain and anguish—the cries of the fallen—echo harsh and wrenching, lost upon the deaf ear of a lingering, chilly twilight.

All are warriors, blood-spattered, battle torn and weary, scattered across that field, struggling for their lives.  And each warrior--for one beat of a pounding heart, one heaving gasp of exhaustion, one moment stolen to wipe sweat, blood and tears from a brow, and clear vision--pauses, caught like statues of flesh and armor turned to stone-- Perseus' fabled companions.

From the western hills where the setting sun glows blood-red, the thunder of an approaching tempest resounds, low at first, but growing distinctly louder with each rumbling beat. 

The bane of the gods, born of emblazoned sunlight thrown across the white blanket of the hills, they emerge, a galloping rush of men and horse. Gallant war-steeds spilling down the hillside—bronze scaled bardings cloak the horses' bodies, their leather chamfrons, adorned with gold-studded eye-pieces, glitter impending vengeance, catching the fading rays of invernal light. The riders are armored to the fullest, bedecked in gilt-plated iron breast-plates, iron-scaled thigh-guards, helms of hardest steel, lances extended horizontally—weapons thirsting for the taste of man-flesh and bone, their oval shields painted in tones of red, blue and gold, depicting feats of battle-craft from ages past. 

The breakneck pace of horses and men galloping down the hillside never falters, their leader mounted on a jet-black stallion—warrior and beast rippling like speeding river water.  His visored helmet sports the shimmering emblem of a roaring lion, and he is followed closely by another of his warriors, carrying the silver-cast standard of a snarling dragon-head, mouth opened in eternal rage, a dazzling, frozen image of fury.  Evidence of the host's speeding assault echoes across the field, the tail of a silken windsock whips out from behind the dragon's head.   

A curse and salvation, the invading cavalry cuts a swath through the confusion of struggling men, this serpentine line of impenetrable invincibility, and all are victim to the onslaught of spearing lances, slashing swords and trampling war-mounts. 

A flash, like the quick emergence of sun behind cloud, and Lucilla's soaring vision takes in the scene of that doomed plain, awash in gore, fallen bodies, scattered limbs and blood, the silence of winter's hush over those moors filled with cries of terror and death, the sound of horses screaming amidst the melee of warring men. At one end of that plain, a man is unhorsed, the midnight-steed a rearing terror of lashing hooves, aiding his rider who has lost his lion-embossed helm.  His black hair is long, like the barbarian warrior he fights, coming out of its thong and matted with blood. Eyes the color of amber beads seethe a promise of death, hacking a desperate defense with sword and reflex, against a monstrous, axe-brandishing, blue-painted warrior, garbed in a tunic of leather skin and cross-gartered, woolen trousers. 

A momentary blur allows her Vision to angle upon another vantage—a mass of overturned chariots, a knot of infantry Lucilla recognizes as Roman-troops, some who are caught, lying forever still in the collection of mangled war-vehicles.  The survivors of the collision are being backed, slowly, and not without a furious resistance, toward a river emptying from between the hills, by a greater force of leather-clad warriors whose long-swords hack through breastplates and shoulder-guards, bossed-shields, with a fatal accuracy. 

Hail falls and a furious wind sweeps the scent of blood and death through the air.  

            The Sword, gilt-red and silver-bright, drives up, in that instant, from beneath the weight of fallen soldiers and armored warriors forced back toward the opaque river, a beacon of promise and resolve, the man who brandishes its flashing, deadly beauty, a blur of motion in a flurry of slashing weapons and flailing limbs. Shock, then, like the whipping wind, a sudden gale-blast, gift of the wide-open sea, slices its way into her being, her spirit-sight soaring—helpless witness—as the struggle of soldier vying against soldier plays on into winter's dusk—a horrid, grisly scene from Tartarus' wasteland.  Breath is sucked out of her body, perception, once encompassed with that of Sword, then of Soaring, jars against the Otherness pervading her soul. 

            _Maximus! Comes her voiceless cry.  _

            _No more, echoes the response of Other.  _

And a word…_Artos, whispers through her sense, rolling like the waves of the ocean retreating back out to sea.  _

            Vision melted away slowly, like snow retreating from warming sunlight, the upheaval of shifting mirage blanketing, once more, to a singular awareness of pulse.  Her own heart beat mirrored that of the world's, she who was Mother of Romans, caught up in the primordial soul-threads of creation, sensing the gentle swishing of astral wings cradled about her being, guiding her to a place of impenetrable dimness--ocean depths where sunlight never penetrated.  

            For a time Lucilla was lulled simply by enfolding darkness, thinking this must be how the fetus feels, wrapped in the security of its mother's womb, hearing only the constant thrum of mother's heart, the _shush_ of mother's lungs.  

Voice invaded, though, abrupt, beautiful and terrible, clear as her thoughts, yet not of her own design.  

            _Now, my daughter, do you understand? All-enveloping, it was the screech of the hawk falling upon its prey, the rip-tide of a gale-wind, and the heart-wrenching, lonely cry of the wolf.  _

Lucilla's awareness awoke in a fresh realization of her loss and grief, swelling into thought and becoming word—not spoken in the human capacity—but cognition and concept all the same.  

            _No, I do not understand!  I only know what has been taken from me, and what can never be restored!_

Silence followed initially--contemplative, a struggle for understanding on the part of Other, probing the mortal woman's mind. 

A timeless moment in this place of cavernous infinity, while Vision returned, encased in memory, episodes in her life when Duty had triumphed over Dream and Idea.  She witnessed, again, that long ago night in Syria, a younger Maximus storming out of her room in voiceless, hurt fury, struggling to disguise the sensitivity of his nature. The pain scrawled across his features, immediate reaction to the new knowledge of her marriage, all the more crippling to her conscience. 

            Another night filtered through her inner-eye--her father, dead, papery skin already sinking into the corporeal evidence of natural decay, still as stone, lying upon a bed from which he would never again rise. Herself, sitting in a corner of that room, weeping silent tears as she watched Commodus instill final orders upon Quintus—unable to condemn her brother's actions verbally, raise dissent against him in time to save Maximus or his family—adding one more sin to that scale she would gladly answer for if it safeguarded the life of her son.

_AM I NOT MERCIFUL! Everything blurred, the words shattering through her soul, sharpening her Vision in the way of a swimmer surfacing from underwater, to find Commodus clutching her chin with iron strength, his eyes blazing wrath.  _

             _   Why do you show me these things_, she cried out in aggrieved rage.  _These memories which only make me relive my failures!_

            _So that you might See, daughter,__ that truth exists within Possibility, decisions born from choices sporting so many sides a mathematician might weep.  That the actions of the past may impact your life, those around you, in the Present, but the future still remains a blank slate, full of further Possibility, and every Choice always has an alternative.  Truth, like Time, is a many-cycled, many-branching path, sometimes following one straight road, at other times, forking, like the limbs of a tree, growing in ways we may never have anticipated.  Now, do you understand? _

Lucilla's response was an almost laughable stubbornness to refuse any acknowledgment of the Other's question—hopeless frustration in this place of cavernous infinity where her spirit was tossed about, no more substantial than a ball of string in kitten's paws. 

_Good, praised the Voice after a moment. A moment Lucilla experienced, in this void absent of basic human perception, as the joyous freshness of a spring breeze dancing over tree-tops, thinking the stimulus akin to laughter. _You show wisdom marking the shortcomings of human comprehension. _The feeling of pleased approval was short-lived_, _the Other's emotion shading to a remembered regret. _Had I but possessed that same ounce of wisdom long ago, I would have known to ask for youth and beauty, not only years as numerous as the grains in a pile of sand.__

Youth?  _Are you not immortal, as the gods are, Lucilla _queried, her puzzlement belying her sorrowful memories for an instant.  

            Again, leaves rustling over the heights of a forest in brisk wind--a chuckle.  _Immortal_, the voice responded with incredulous humor.  _Nearly.  A god, not even close._  _I am the Voice of Cumae, once promised the love of a god, and deceived into this present… state—the echo of wind's whisper, the dying away of the raven's screech.  At times I take shape between twilight and full night, not dead, but…hardly living._  

             _For so long, I think I have slept, wandering, mindless, in these ruins which used to rise above Lake Avernus, forgetting. _ The mournful essence of the Voice, like the keening wail of the dead, full of bitter grief, made Lucilla, in her mind, want to retreat from this harrowing eternal resentment.  

_Forgetting I was still alive, I still existed.  Until you, Mother of Romans, the Voice falling away to a whispering echo, not so benign as before.  _

            Lucilla's transient psyche, struggling to grasp concepts composing the fluid-consistency of reality, hadn't felt, up to this moment of her soul-journey, any threat of endangerment.  She had forgotten she was no god either. 

_I was promised immortality, Mother of Romans!  The words hissed through her perception, the licking tongue of the serpent, causing Lucilla to shrink away from this putrid thing trying to suffocate her life-force._

The ponderous regularity of that pulse, always in the back of her awareness, a beat she had come to realize was her own heart, was beginning to slow, falter, skipping now and again. Each time it happened, there was a disconcerting breathlessness, a feeling of underwater submergence, and the air was crushed from her lungs. 

            In the infinite darkness, a sinister aura was reaching out with that Voice, dragging at Lucilla's awareness, sucking her into a quagmire of smothering, vile rot.       

            _I was promised my Voice would not die! And you, who wish to die, shall be my vehicle to the world!_

            _No! Lucilla's panicked.  _Not like this!_  _

She fought to keep the flitting vibrancy of her life-force from being quashed by this great maw of suffocating evil, pulse shuddering through her veins, rushing blood to an organic mind too ready to shut down, forcing instinct to take over, forcing breath.

Forcing _her Voice._

Infuriated and desperate, Lucilla's breath became physical sound, a primordial cry of terror and defiance. 

Forcing Life.  

For one brief, beautiful instant, the drowning bog was pushed back, but she was losing, the material strength of her lungs failing, her conscious thought purged with the jabbering, shrieking voices of the Eumenides, their grasping, slime-mopped fingers binding her fast, drawing her ever further down, into this place of gloom, shadow, and darkening decay.

_I shall be heard! The abominable Voice proclaimed again_.  The Eumenides promised this!__

Lucilla screamed once more, futile as her struggle to remember--in this final moment--breath, beat, vision, sense, sound.  Humanity.  

The dark was winning.  She was dying.

And then…

            Into the void, an anchor thrown out to a sea-swept unfortunate, a new voice. 

"Lucilla!" 

Another's voice, muffled at first, but growing stronger with each syllabic repetition.  

            "Lucilla!" 

It echoed in her staggering mind--_Lucilla, Lucilla--_not pushing back the overwhelming night, but cleaving through it, offering direction to her blinded soul.     

Touch broke through with Voice this time. "Lucilla!"--hands gripping her shoulders, shaking her slightly.    

Sweet and clear, strong as the grip on her physical form, this new Voice set her free with a final utterance. "Three times I call thee, and three times I bind thee to earth and matter.  Lucilla, awaken!"  As bidden, the daughter of Marcus Aurelius reached out toward that guiding command.

            _Awaken.  _Breathe--_Such simple actions. She gasped, suddenly, for with each inhalation returned Scent, like a needle pricking her skin, pungent and sharp, disintegrating the gloom of her mind, prompting her to further orient through the engulfing void, toward the low, soothing tones of that Voice.    _

            A gloom which did not quite release her, despite the acrid odor of garlic, basil oil, peppermint, and rock salt, pervading her lungs, and she retched, forcing a powerful expulsion of air in a raging fit of coughing.  

            _You are not finished with your duty, Mother of Romans! The gloom wavered with that desperate, screeching pronouncement lost to the forgotten halls once abiding above the heights of Avernus, the crumbling ruins of Cumae._

Vision blazed into her mind, branding Lucilla's inner-eye with divine brilliance, coalescing upon a scene filled with the charred remains of a fort, smoking in the aftermath of invasion.  The grey light of dawn fell upon a throng of onlookers--mostly soldiers of the Praetorian Guard--armored for battle, all of them caped and cloaked against an ice-cold, whipping wind, despite the wood beyond the fort bearing the verdant traces of spring growth.  A season which should have brought the promise of new life, yet the scene all about spoke of devastation, destruction—bodies scattered about the wet mud, a gruesome sight of mangled, hacked arms and legs, severed heads, the signs of a great fire recently consuming the surrounding structures of an officer's barracks, soldier compounds. Vision, centering lastly upon herself, standing tall and proud, amid that scene of death, garbed in a gown of blood-scarlet, swathed with gold ribbons of silk, molding to her slender body in wake of a gusting wind, her cloak affording little protection from the icy-blast, her unbound hair blowing about her face in tangles of chestnut waves.  Standing like a guardian spirit over the prone form of—anguish purged her soul—Maximus, who was struggling to rise, writhing in pain upon the rain-soaked ground.  And she, at an impasse, meeting the black gaze of a man whose image—_Virius—encompassed all she hated.  In her eyes was a look of dispassionate fury, her hands clenched about Virius' wrist, wresting a long-bladed dagger away from the throat of Maximus.   _

            "Lady…Lady, please," that smooth, low voice entreated, feeling her physical form being shaken, eliciting a gasping choke from her lungs while trying to succor air, and the scene shattered like glass within the womb of her inner-eye.  


	8. Sins of the Mothers

**Chapter 8: The Sins of the Mothers**

Flailing, she sprang upright like the fabled Minerva born from the head of Jupiter, blinded still, no longer by the maw of dark eternity, but the burning brightness of sunlight, struggling against the gritty embodiment of physical reality--the overpowering entrapment of bone, muscle, flesh, and mind. A cry erupted past her lips, strangled and terrified, striking out with hands and voice in mindless instinct to stave off the grip on her shoulders.  Like a wild hawk ensnared in a cage too small for its vast spread of wings, her soul thrust forth against the confines of skin and mortal containment—one last attempt to break free.  

Bound, entrapped, she thought her heart would explode within her ribcage, so fast was it racing in this irrational, involuntary fear. She heard herself half-sob, half-scream, "I can't--" still thrashing about mindlessly, a victim thrown over a cliff-side, falling to the decent below. 

"I can't…can't see!"-- A gasp, another intake of air, "--can't…feel," shuddering, weeping in desperation.  Breathless.

Breath.  

Breathe.

And the ancient, primordial fear pervading her sense retreated from the shape of word, the soothing direction of guidance as arms encircled her, fingers stroked gently along face, shoulders, and hair.  

"Breathe, my lady.  Breathe."

Over and over, she heard that low voice wash through her senses, repeating those same, simple words.  "Breathe, my lady.  Breathe."  Hypnotic and comforting, the command was in-sync with the slow, rocking sway of her form embraced by the source of that calming, centering presence.  

            There was a reason why mothers spoke to their young ones, why men tempered panicked animals with such tones.  

            Gradually, her struggle punctuated by terrified sobs, lulled, quieted.  Lucilla felt herself being laid back gently, the softness of the mattress underneath her, the covering of a light, linen sheet being pulled over her body, lent a comforting security further breaching that initial recovery from…

            Death?  

No, for surely death could not be so smothering, full of that overwhelming sense of drowning, sucked into an eternal Well saturated with visions of simultaneous past, present and possible future.  Death, as she had always envisioned it, was peace: quiet, comforting, retiring.  Where she had been was something entirely different—the great cauldron of creation and infinite potential; a place…a place her mind, again imprisoned by her mortal cognition, organic brain and fiber, was already beginning to lose sense of—images blurred and confused, remaining just beyond her current capability to try and grasp; put order to memory and decipher meaning.  

            A cool cloth was wiped across her brow, wet with cleansing water.  The sensation helped to ground her further back in her body, and breathing took on the mindless motion of autonomic function once more.  She tried to move, feeble attempt, finding her limbs as heavy as granite pillars, and gave up the effort.  For the moment at least.  

            "Not yet, Lady.  But soon," the voice welled like smooth silk to her ears.

            So, for a time, she simply laid there.  A span which she did not try to track, lulled into hypnotic stillness before physical stimuli forced her to try and absorb the material world.  Eyes closed, the cloth being soaked across her forehead at infrequent intervals, her limbs remained weak with weighted lethargy.  A piece at a time, small foci broke through this calm façade of rest.  

            A breeze blew through the room, gentle and fragrant with the sweet aroma of ripened hay, wild carrots, and tansy.  The wisp of veiled curtains covering the window by her bed flapped in a graceful, soft motion with the light gusts of air.  Sunlight behind closed lids; at times, a shifting of shadow blocked, temporarily, the warmth, the impression of brightness filtering through the window.  

            The reassuring comfort of soft, smooth hands upon her brow was accompanied by the stir of that others woman's breathing, a settling of weight as she arranged herself, sitting next to where Lucilla lay, recumbent.   

            Small foci, a piece at a time.

            Sounds carried on the light, airy breeze.  A distant cry of children's laughter, laboring servants beyond the boundaries of this interior, walled room. The occasional, far-off _lowing_ of cows in pastures to the south, past the villa's central work-yard, was interspersed by a much closer, melodious chirping of the birds upon the window ledge.    

            Breath.  Breathe. A deeper sigh and slow, enlivening warmth began to crawl up Lucilla's legs, to her stomach, her head, easing a pressure she hadn't been aware of; relaxation seeping over her body.  She continued, contentedly, to drift toward sleep--the natural progression of her exhausted body and her over-wrought soul.

            Until the blow of a voice, deeper, roughened with the edges of masculinity, caught Lucilla like a fish-hook to the mouth, tugging her mind back to the immediacy of the absolute present.  

            "You are certain she has…," The voice faltered for an instant, overcoming a tide of feeling before continuing.  "She has…come back to us…completely?"

            She knew that voice, tried to remember exactly…tried to place who it belonged to--if trusted ally or despised enemy.  Tried…

            And with the barreling force of an approaching avalanche, Lucilla drew breath in sharply, memory like a jagged knife in the cradle of her mind, at long last, daring to open her eyes.  

            "We shall learn soon enough, Master Gracchus," that lovely, swelling of feminine resonance replied.  

            The harsh glare of sunlight greeted her vision, and Lucilla blinked twice, a third time, before physical sight dissolved color, form, and motion into a sharper, detailed contrast. One last rapid closure of eyelids and Sekt-aten's willowy frame, outlined in the sun's afternoon rays entering through the narrow window by the bed, resolved into a single person rather than two indistinct images.  

            "Can you understand me, Lady?"  The Nubian woman's high, sloping forehead was furrowed with worry, her eyes, like the night sky set into milky-white opals, dark with concern.  She held Lucilla's hands in her own, encouragement and subtle comfort. 

            "Very well, Sekt-aten," the daughter of Marcus Aurelius managed to rasp out past dry, tender vocal chords. "Very well," she repeated, sighing minutely.  

Still weak, she turned her head--pillowed upon goose-down cushions--carefully, not yet courageous enough to attempt sitting upright.

            The bedroom she had come to acquire since occupying Quintus' country-villa was a simple, tastefully decorated abode.  In the morning and early afternoon, the greatest amount of light shone through the window, obliging the need for a lady's dressing-table set in the corner, toward the foot of the bed. An artfully crafted stool complemented the ensemble, along with a bronze mirror and boar-bristle brush adorning the table's surface. Containers of rice-powder, pencils of eye-kohl, lip-staining balm, and eye-shadows, preserved in their fine lead granules--various components of any well-to-do woman's dressing ritual-- were curiously lacking, by preference of the lady herself. Her bargain with Quintus concerning their legal arrangement required her to make this agrarian property commercially successful, performing the rustic duties of a rural villa-owner's wife, not flounder in ostentatious displays of accessorizing.   

Thus, amid her interminable sorrow, grieving the violent death of her son, emotionally isolated from the household staff and fieldworkers, she managed, unintentionally, and without her conscious knowledge, to captivate both the overseer of the wool-production, and the master of vineyards.  A novice to such trades, she endeavored, in two months, to learn what there was about the gathering and manufacture of sheep-fur; the harvest of grapes and the fermentation of wine.  None too adverse to running her fingers through the greasy, untreated tufts of newly sheared fleeces, nor walk the vineyards in the sweltering, mid-day heat, examining for aphid and worm infestations, Lucilla's determination to grasp the intricacies of rural economy impressed the two men to the point of near worship.  Aulus and Petalius, respectively, would have swum across the wine-dark sea to Greece if Lucilla only asked. 

Frankly, to Lucilla's way of thinking, her strenuous days offered a sort of temporary respite from her memories of Lucius.  While performing such tasks, her appearance remained of little concern, so intent was her focus on grading the grapes for the next _vinalia_, or rating the quality of sheep-thread, anticipating the autumnal markets of Rome, late season shipments departing Ostia. 

Night, however, proved more difficult. At night, Lucilla could hear her son's cry of child-terror in the soft, gentle breeze whispering throughout Latium's gente countryside of terraced, golden fields, the surrounding, distant hills.  At night, she dreamt of his skull, split with a sword, his brains spilling out upon the shining, immaculate surface of the white-marble floors, an augury's sacrifice beneath the impassive magnificence of granite pillars lining the halls of the Imperial Palace.  

Staring past Sekt-aten, still seated next to her upon the bed, Lucilla appeared to be studying the seductively beauteous nymphs supporting the dressing table's four corners. Hand-wrought in beech-wood, each nymph was draped in flowing swaths of cloth, revealing plump shoulders, rounded thighs, and full breasts.  

In truth, it was exceedingly difficult meeting Gracchus' gaze, where he had positioned himself as comfortably as possible, upon the sandy-colored stool, he and the seat awash in shadows from the setting sun.  It couldn't have been easy, given that the furniture piece provided the bare minimum in terms of support, the seat molded in a fixture of entwined ivy running along tripod struts. 

"One thing can be said for the dowries accompanying the women of the Aemilii:  they always had the financial resources to decorate their new home with faultless adornment—well-crafted, deceptively simple, durable and elegant," the ex-Senator commented, finally breaking the awkward silence of an appropriate opening. "The tradition, if I might say so, has been one of those better established amongst the founding families.  I never would have realized your chosen inception as the newest member would be to, instead, partake in country-rituals and harvest celebrations."

Ah, the stinging bite of that cultured sarcasm. 

His pointed criticisms were rarely directed at her, and she could generally hold her own against Gracchus' critiques, relying on an equally cultivated, scathing wit.  It might have been helpful had her verbal capacity not chosen to fail at this moment, a dry throat and cracked lips her traitors, mangling words, and she sounded like a squawking, enfeebled crow. 

Proffering her mistress a goblet of cool water, Sekt-aten shot the ex-senator a look full of irritation.

Embarrassed, impatient with her weakened state, Lucilla pondered angrily, it might have been equally helpful in dealing with Gracchus, if he still didn't retain the capacity for chiding her like a young girl caught with her hand in the honey-pot. 

Ignoring the elder man for the moment, Lucilla let her Nubian handmaid assist her in sitting upright, pillows behind her back, gulping the clean water—ambrosia of the gods to her parched throat—loudly and greedily. 

Refreshing and moist, the liquid, along with the movement, gradual and slow as it remained, helped to clear some of the lassitude from her weighted limbs, reorient her mind, and sort her thoughts. Finally, clearing her throat once, twice, and swallowing a final time, she said, into the hush of the summer evening, "Such words of well-wishing, Gnaeus Gracchus?  It's been a number of years since I sacrificed the girl's tunicafor the stola and palla of womanhood. Are you here to congratulate me on my new marriage, or castigate my behavior as the freshly appointed mistress of Quintus' villa?"  

Lost in her thready voice was a bitterness she couldn't fully conceal.

From beneath thick, spiky brows, mottled an iron-gray, and a shock of white hair which had not thinned, even into his sixth decade, there was a softening in the hard irony shining out of the retired politician's brown eyes.  "When the old pride-leader has fallen, and a new lion-king has taken over the collective, one does not blame the lioness for seeking protection with the conqueror to safeguard her own welfare." 

And for that moment, his words, expressing the solemn knowledge of her recent losses, provided a much needed condolence; allowed her a space to absorb the fact his comfort came without pity—a mannerism typical of Gracchus' behavior toward her.  There also existed, in that moment, acting in the way of an old injury which never fully healed, a sad, distant regret filling Lucilla's heart, the reluctant admission this was more sentiment than she would ever have received from her father.  A father who had loved her, but never understood her.  

To the now deceased Caesar, the daughter of Marcus Aurelius had been an enigma of womanhood: cherished for her intelligence, appreciated for her political insight, and prized for her beauty.  The combination made her a grand commodity for buying a man's loyalty as co-emperor in those bygone years of her adolescence; simultaneously denying her a throne, an empire she had been the most worthy to rule. 

Of them all--the fatuous politicians, the contentious military aristocracy, and her ruthless siblings--she was the one who understood the factions of the Senate; the shifting loyalties between patrician and plebian; the balance provided by the equestrians.  Lucilla had learned her history lessons well, anticipating the vagaries of the army, realizing the utter importance of a consistent grain supply.  Should a populace suffer famine too many years in a row, grow underfed, enduring the tragedies of constant warfare, not allowed to produce the material and food-based items transported via the Empire's vast network of roads, that populace presented a threat to the stability of Roma Mater. 

Two lessons she had neglected to incorporate during the years of her schooling, however.  One--women did not rule empires, and especially in the years of war characterizing the majority of her father's reign, women _absolutely could not command legions.  _

The second lesson--the center of every observance running through Lucilla's mind at that moment--the bitter axis upon which the core of her days revolved since that decisive night, so many years ago in Syria, was the final, ultimate realization women—particularly women of power—did not chose where to lay their hearts. 

Hot and humid had that night been--late summer, the same time of year as this present moment--harvest time.  Perhaps, then, it was the season accounting for this sudden wave of painful recollection, Sekt-aten and Gracchus, two physical presences in the room, fading to the background, submerged by memory.  Maximus, storming out of that other room, on the far side of the Eastern Empire, emerged from the shadows of the past.  For a wild, irrationally emotional second, she had fancied forfeiting her pride and ambition, daring the young centurion's hurt rage, discovering her impending marriage to Verus.  Contemplated running after him into the hallway of that house where the governor had put up her, and her father's retinue, for the duration of their stay.  Contemplated pursuing him, dragging at his hand and pleading at his feet for his forgiveness, admitting through tears of frustration and helpless rage, she hadn't a choice in who she wished to take as a husband. Asserting the possibility she would rather have run off with him-- this young centurion newly promoted to the rank of tribune in her father's legion--than spend her years as a patrician wife hanging upon the arm of the co-emperor. 

Asserting, and finally declaring a love she never truly admitted. 

Until another night, years later, when she uttered words culminating in a brief revival of hope—and remembrance.  _I have been alone all my life…_

Realizing, in that one shared moment, seeing a faint glimmer across Maximus' face of the young legionnaire from the western province of Hispania, the man he had been before the slave—even before the general—gallant and carefree, his cheeky humor disguising an intensity of feeling and burning intelligence that had captured her heart so long ago--it was already too late. 

So tender, so soft his gaze had been: _You laughed more--words so full of regret. _

And her heart broke all over again, as it had that night, years before in Syria; as it only would, one other time, watching her son be struck by a sword, his child-skull no match for the cold bite of forged steel.

Beneath all of this re-lived remorse, though, was, once more—that cold, hard rationalization always in the back of her mind—the sting of her own reason.  Something she was beginning to understand a trace of, little-by-little, revived in snatches of image coming back to her gradually, reflections of that strange world absorbed in gloom, dark possibility, where her soul had been lost these last days.  

Truth. 

The truth was, that night, long ago, in hot, humid Syria, she had, indeed, a choice.  And she decided, freely, of her own accord, driven by duty, and a decision involving imperatives more pressing than her ambition, or her fickle, love-addled teenage heart.  Duty to Rome, the attainment of _Augusta_ to her husband's rank, for she was a Daughter of Romans, in the same way she would become a Mother of Romans.  

"Anyone of sound mind and just heart knows his death was never your fault, Lucilla," Gracchus' voice broke through the scattered sequence of her thoughts. 

Never aware of closing her eyes, the ex-senator's utterance brought her abruptly back to the setting of the room with a start, early evening birdsong filtering through open shutters, seemingly carried by the rays of pink-gold sunset streaming between the billowing curtains.  

She couldn't broach that subject quite yet, the pain too new, too close to the bleeding core of her battered heart.  

"Quintus," she elected to speak at last, borrowing from Gracchus' previously introduced metaphor, "is hardly what one would call the conquering lion; though, I suppose in his own way, he possesses a certain brand of courage."

Scrutinizing the polished former Senator seated upon the stool, waiting for his response, Lucilla noticed, for the first time, haggardness, a hanging of the skin under his eyes, adding years to an otherwise well-preserved, scholarly featured man.  The awareness brought her out of her own enmeshment of grief momentarily, realizing, all at once, he too, had known his own suffering in the months since Commodus' death.

In spite of events lending their turmoil to the ex-senator's concealed thoughts, his visage was still sharp, precise, brown eyes piercing like a bird's, catching every detail in the world about him. 

***************************************

            He knew that look, the way she held his gaze with barely a flicker of betraying emotion—a hard, considering expression, heavy-lidded, conveyed in a just-perceptible tilt of her head. In the years of their acquaintance, he'd come to recognize varying degrees of similar facial impression, practiced facades she offered the public world reflecting disparate meanings from flirtation to her cutting intelligence mulling over the latest political escapade.  It would have worked on the vast majority of the Senate who had fallen under the spell of her beauty—her iconoclastic illusion abounding with untouchable stateliness and Roman matron-hood.  

            Her mother, too, had been particularly skilled at this same tactic, using physical charm, a fine patrician loveliness, to veil the underlying surge of feeling. _Oh, child of my heart, there's no need to hide so much from me, he thought in woe.  But he humored her for a while longer, the irony returning to his tone, accommodating her casual attempt at discourse.  "He's cautious.  He thinks before he acts.  His father, the elder Laetus Amelianus, was much the same, biding his time, waiting to see how circumstances in the government fell before choosing loyalties bent on improving his own position."_

"One might be inclined to name such a trait cowardice," her defensive pride breaking through, a fleeting impression of rueful scrutiny warring with a bare glimmer of sorrow—quashed abruptly.  

Gracchus heard the scorn, though, plain to a man who had known this woman since she had been a child of eight years, despite her best effort keeping her voice neutral.  

The awareness did nothing to temper his reply.  "Or, one might call it prudence," he insisted with mocking lightness, and a deeper purpose. 

He saw her eyes flash at that, Lucilla obviously not agreeing, as the Nubian woman, a silent shadow till this moment, her legs folded underneath her, seated on the floor next to the bed, hissed in disproval. 

Recalcitrance in slaves was something he thought Lucilla had learned long ago not to tolerate.  He meant to say something about that…later.  Of more consequence to the present, this child of his dearest friend, much beloved emperor, was enveloped in a self-destructive cycle of mourning—a sorrow that was quickly transforming to a malignance in her soul.  If he had learned nothing else all those years ago, from the woman who eventually became his brother's wife, it was the hard fact that when a wound was horridly infected, on the verge of gangrenous, the only way to salvage the limb was to re-open the injury and let foul pus drain out. 

Cruel, but cleansing.   

So it was with Lucilla, and his carefully placed remark: "Cowardice as a descriptor might be better applied, had Quintus ever demonstrated an inclination of short-siding his orders, avoiding the instructions of his superiors in the midst of a battle.  To the best of my knowledge, child, he is accomplished enough on the field, and fulfills his commands to the peak of correctness.  If his reputation for avoiding initiative is non-existent when his own life or interests are at risk, neither has he made it a habit to skirt duty."

"Not exactly the qualities of a general," the daughter of Marcus Aurelius bit out.  

Gracchus' thin lips hinted a brief smile, humorless.  "Nor those necessary for a leader of men.  But they are the qualities that keep one alive."

            And watched, in the ensuing silence filled by the distant calls of laboring men, the sounds of various farm animals in the fenced pens beyond the central work-yard, marking their location in this rural villa, Lucilla's face became a mask of sorrow, struggling to absorb the truth of his provoking statement.  In one blink, the hard glitter of her eyes was extinguished by a wincing, reflexive twitch across the curve of an aristocratic cheek, her fragile composure dissolving like salt in a glass of water. 

            _Gods, is she so destroyed,_ he wondered silently, feeling an anguish of his own, witness to the core of her pain.  It shouldn't have been so easy shattering the mask of her carefully construed pride.  It nearly broke his heart. 

The Nubian handmaid, displaying the most tactful behavior—in his opinion--yet exhibited by the dark-skinned woman, murmured in undertones to her mistress, something of retrieving a flask of wine and glasses more apropos for night-time refreshment.  Lucilla graced her with a passing look of desperate gratitude, and he waited for Sekt-aten to remove herself promptly before speaking, her form that of a sinuous shade moving soundlessly through the gloom of sundown. 

            In the course of this carefully orchestrated conversation, his next words were not going to be easy for either of them. "He loves you, you know.  He always has.  He's taken an amazing risk accepting your hand in marriage."

            She should have responded in spiteful dignity, her head springing up, her eyes brimming with affront, while she admonished him in a heated lashing of temper regarding the lack of otherwise available choices presented during her banishment upon Capri.  In the repertoire of recollection, that was how the old Lucilla would have reacted--willfully, spirited, and ambitious.  

Instead, there was only this hollow-cheeked ghost of a woman he'd come to know some twenty years ago, purplish smudges of exhaustion silhouetting each eye, collapsing into herself, bowing her head in plain misery, the snarls of cinnamon-chestnut waves falling about her slender shoulders, streaks of honey and earth against the un-dyed cotton of her sleeveless shift.  

"I know," she intoned through the empty strain of unshed tears.  "It is his weakness, and will become his own source of pain as the years go by."

             Unthinking, Gracchus reached out with his hand through the shadows of impending dusk, futile action induced by her withering defeat, catching only air between his fingers.  He sat too far away from her to do other than advise in fatherly comfort, "His love, Lucilla, is also your protection.  A source, you would be well-advised to cultivate," he finished gently.   

            "How can I, Gracchus?  Oh gods, how can I?"  She implored, distress and agitation making her shake her head in denial of her circumstances, chafing her hands roughly along the skin of her upper-arms.  "I tried to make decisions that would set us all free, ensure our protection.  The only thing I've managed is to imprison us behind more walls of deception--invite more death," the last coming out in a breathless rasp, sounding like a strangled cat.  

In the rose-gilt sunlight of a summer evening, a breeze playfully casting the drapes about, dimming and brightening patterns of shadow across Lucilla's form, the bed, onto a fresco of bright meadow greens, sylvan browns, showing two hares frolicking in fields of clover and hayseed along the opposite wall, this woman who had been a daughter, sister, and wife of Caesars nearly broke.  Clawing for control of her grief, she drew her legs up, wrapping her arms around them, tugging and tangling the linen sheet in the process.  Turning her face aside to rest a cheek upon her knees, looking directly at Gracchus with a troubled, searching expression, he had an unexpected image of this same woman, the age of twelve--child on the brink of adulthood--contending with the event of her mother's death.  Searching, seeking answers, seeking comfort, which Gracchus could not provide.  

The vividness of his remembrance did nothing to assuage the fact he would have traded the accomplishments of his lifetime, relived the failings of his career, the pain of his own losses--personal and otherwise--to ease her sorrow, lessen the turmoil of her father's death, her brother's demise and her son's murder.  

Daughter, wife and sister she might have been, but she had also been a mother, the sad occurrence of Lucius' death making Gracchus feel an unexpected rush of outrage at such a waste of innocent life. 

And lending certain clarity upon the true, unstated source of her torment.

Finally allowing himself to shuffle across the short distance to her bed, his stride surprisingly spry for a man his age, Gracchus sighed heavily under his breath, containing his own feeling. Unresisting, the daughter of his heart--this daughter of Marcus Aurelius--complied to the encirclement of his arms about her person.  

The posture was one of shared mourning. 

            "Your decisions, the consequences you feel yourself guilty for, Lucilla, did not arise by your doing, singly," each word more difficult to utter than its syllabic predecessor, their only purpose to reveal the deep pain abiding in these past months, the lost years.  

            Stroking back the matted strands of her hair, he kissed the top of her head gently. "Oh Lucilla, the crimes that transpired since the death of your father go back so much further than the unfortunate inception of your brother's reign," his voice loosing it's practiced calm, threatening to betray him and break, like this exquisite woman digging her fingers into his arm and shoulder, her face buried in his chest, clutching him in a failing effort to fend off a rising tide of grief.  

            "All those years ago,"--_child of my soul_, the endearment unvoiced--,"your marriage to Verus seemed a reasonable insurance toward securing the eastern half of the Empire.  Not only did I wrong you by failing to argue harder with your father to delay your marriage, I wronged Marcus, failing to believe your commendations regarding young Maximus Decimus Meridius. 

            "Had we--," he broke off, faltering, feeling Lucilla convulse in his arms all at once, the sound of that name spoken aloud—a man she had never stopped loving-- inviting her final wretched, muffled bereavement. "Had we but listened to you, then," he continued, resolving to speak through her cracked sobbing, "so much would have been different.  So much," he whispered--words full of lamentable regret.  

            It seemed instinctive to comfort, absorb her wracking anguish by rocking her against him, murmuring periodic _shushing _sounds into her hair. He'd done no less that night she'd sworn, stamped, raged and ultimately broken down; weeping in helpless fury, emoting to Gracchus, as she never would have to her father, against the decision to marry her off to Lucius Verus.  And it was Gracchus who calmed the willful child of Marcus Aurelius, his soothing patience, his reasoning, whittling away her adolescent daydreams of love and Venus' seductive infatuations.  After all, there were few people Marcus' daughter relied on, confiding the deepest secrets of her heart; she trusted him, as her father did.  Besides, he, Gnaeus Sempronius Gracchus Calpurnianus—who had once been Gnaeus Crescens Britannicus Calpurnianus--understood with greater sympathy than many of the royal family's acquaintance might have suspected, what price the inevitability of duty inflicted upon the golden dreams of childhood, and the illusion of love existing only in poetry, immortalized in song. 

The rational voice of logic, ultimately, inevitably, won.  Later, the following day, Annia Aurelia Galleria Lucilla would be summoned by her father, Imperator Marcus Aelius Aurelius Antoninus, to state in a mild, flat voice, her glad acceptance to Lucius Verus' offer of marriage.  Her reward, sore consolation for a torment she would rather die than ever let her father deduce, a look of warm, approving pride in her father's distracted gaze.  An assemblage of Syrian ambassadors had been awaiting audience, rankling out the terms of a truce, Gracchus recalled, constructing the shaky peace in those first days after the Parthian War.  In such perspectives, one could excuse Marcus' carelessness regarding the concerns of his children; the affairs of State always took precedence over the needs of family--the sacrifice of great men.

His mind was ordered back to the present, suffering the storm of Lucilla's convulsive sorrow, her breathing harsh and rapid.  He could feel acutely, where her tears soaked the light gray cotton of his knee-length, country-tunic; over his heart, in a strange way he felt it made her wounds his own, and for a time he simply let her fall of grief go on, unabated by silence, lost to the quiet sounds of summer's peaceful twilight—a gentle breeze blessed by a musical chirping of crickets, and the piercing sweetness of avian birdsong.

            "You see," the ex-senator intoned softly into the matted, unkempt locks of the weeping woman's hair, "historians in later ages, I fear, shall never cease to ponder on why Marcus chose Commodus as his official heir those five years ago. It was a cruel mockery of Fate, though," he expounded bitterly, "bidding him change his mind in the days before his death. By the time your father died, and General Maximus was named Protector of Rome, your centurion-turned-general had achieved a place in your father's heart closer than that of his own surviving son.  But what human, Lucilla," he stipulated grievously, feeling his own tears escape forth now, soaking her hair, "can anticipate the fickle will of Fortuna."  

She didn't notice; another wheezing intake of breath, a spasm through her slender form, shaking her shoulders, and she could only clutch harder, fingers digging into his arms. Trying, desperately, to fold into herself, escape the true source of her great pain. 

"My son, Gracchus!" she choked out, "My son is dead because of me! My son!"

            "_Not because of you, Lucilla," he said through the broken sound of his own sorrow, definite intent no less absolute in its reckoning. "_Because _of Virius Lupus."  _

Words of truth and comfort, merely freeing her to weep still harder, shudders breaking over her slim frame, heart-wrenchingly delicate in his arms    

            And he simply held her, cradling her as though she were a child weeping for the loss of her pet kitten, not a woman fully grown, lamenting a parent's worst nightmare regarding the fate of a beloved son. 

In the meantime, night had drawn its full solstice across the bedroom, where Gracchus, raising his head, could see through the window, out to the sky, the first twinkling stars and a sliver of moon suspended up above—lone pearly crescent lost to the deep, dark purple of the world's vast dome. 

Whether from exhaustion or because his presence had, in some part, soothed a fraction of Lucilla's tortured sorrow, he only knew that she quieted eventually, her torn sobs fading away with the last of the birdsong, the cacophonous sounds of men finishing their farmyard duties. With the cooler wash of night, late summer afternoon's indolent zephyr picked up strength, bringing a gusty purity into the room, the promise of rain—humid air, clashing in purpose, opposing the cooler heights of the Apennines. Frogs, inhabiting muddied banks of the stream slithering a transit through the villa's southern and eastern pastures, added a muted chorus of high-pitched piping, humble medley accompanying clouds dancing past the ivory-pale face of the moon, wispy veils of an eastern beauty, crafting the timeless ballad of wind for the audience of blue-black night. 

            It was strange, the impression one could form, feeling like an actor in a play, awaiting cues for the next transpiring scene—Sekt-aten gliding back into the darkened room, in due course, holding an oil-lamp, just as Lucilla inhaled a steadying breath, taking the incentive to push herself out of his arms, and lean back against her pillows. 

"He will answer for his crime.  I vow that," said the daughter of Marcus Aurelius, cold venom permeating her shaking voice—the tonic of vengeance—remedy for the evident moisture in her eyes.

The Nubian handmaid had placed the lamp on the table, its licking flame jumping about in the night-tide breeze, striking over the two goblets of beaten copper she held in her hands with flickering, reddish-gold radiance, the narrow stems of inlaid ivory, dusky in the shadowed room.  From a slim-necked pitcher of green glass, she poured a garnet-dark river of wine into each chaliced vessel, her long-limbed gestures embodying fluid ease.

"You're servant is not exactly a deaf mute, dearest," the retired senator stated, his express disproval smacking of the schoolmaster's tone, teacher to novice student.  Lucilla, no matter how aggrieved, had grown-up in a court full of intrigue and subterfuge, knew better than to utter words full of undisguised intention before the likes of household servants.

            The Nubian woman shot him a look full of ill-concealed annoyance for a second time that night, handing his goblet to him, her obsidian eyes shimmering dark mystery, dared him to bespeak her mistress when she elected the liberty of not leaving straight-away.   Instead, she sat upon the beech-wood stool he'd occupied earlier, in the corner, her graceful purpose belied by a composed bearing, hands crossed contritely in her lap, dark-skinned wraith melting soundless into the murky shadows.         

            "I do not need to be a mute in order to discriminate the information meant only for the precinct of this room, Master Gracchus," filtered Sekt-aten's velvet-voiced response from her place, clothed in a white, linen-sheathed gown, her form seemed incandescent in the dancing lamplight.

            It would have been beneath his status, putting a recalcitrant servant in her place with a castigating retort; opting, simply, to cock a skeptical eye-brow toward the Nubian, when Lucilla found her voice again, her words taking the edge off a strained moment. 

            "I would speak for her, but you heard her as well as I did," articulated the daughter, wife, and sister of Caesars, studying him and her Nubian handmaid with fleeting amusement, a transitory gleam which turned the lovely curve of lips up, reaching the empty light of her eyes before dying away.

            He sniffed softly, a stifled displeasure, but the Nubian was essentially Lucilla's responsibility; if the fates saw fit to accuse them of treason, plotting to take the life a murderous Praetorian, then what little faith he still retained in gods and justice would dissolve to an echo of absent belief.  The potential for disloyalty existed in all of them.  Why should he think himself, or Lucilla, any more immune than a servant in the quest of changing allegiances when it came to protecting their own interests in the cut-throat game of a city eternally awash in politics and power-scruples? 

Then, pushing the thought from his mind, he took an appreciative sip of the smooth, spicy beverage in his goblet—his cue for the next scene-shift in their precise discourse.  "An attempt was made upon Pertinax's life last week."

The effect of his pronouncement was almost immediate, a faint glimmer of reflective, pondering intelligence beginning to shine in Lucilla's eyes.  She too, took a long swallow from her wine-glass, seeming to savor the dry hint of virgin grapes picked in the early spring, crisp in their new growth, the wine's full aroma of embellished flavor washing over her tongue, down her throat.  The way she used the back of her hand, just then, to rub away tracks of tears upon her cheeks, eyes swollen and red-rimmed, was so very mundane for a woman whose lineage defined the essence of noble inheritance.  

A motion, he realized, she utilized as a gradual recovery for her poise, surreptitiously re-establishing an internal equilibrium, similar to the employment of her casual comment. "It was coming.  I'm amazed the old goat managed to retain his hold on the throne this long.  According to Quintus, there were—_are_," she amended,"--quite a number of the Praetorian buckling under the constraints Helvius placed on their salaries, their behavior toward the citizenry." 

His proximity to Lucilla, where he remained seated on the edge of the bed, allowed him to watch the shadows skipping across her fine-boned profile, marveling that even Cornelia of the Gracchi, legendary ancestress of his adopted family, or Aurelia—dauntless mother of Julius Caesar—would have found a matchless rivalry from this child of the Antonii. 

            "The plot might have succeeded," Gracchus continued, "had the chosen heir not seen the pitfall in their scheming.  Helvius in Ostia, checking on the grain supply, Virius Lupus and your husband accompanying our new Emperor, and unbeknownst to all of them—an upheaval of aspiring dissidents left in Rome.  They hauled a poor, unsuspecting Claudius Pompeianus from the opulent chambers of his mansion on the Palatine, newly acquired property due courtesy of his marriage to your elder sister, Fadilla."

Lucilla sipped delicately, once more, from her goblet, one elegant brow arching in consideration of the news he imparted, though her visage, marred with exhaustion and gaunt, remained classically bland.  Her only remark, a truncated, "Better my sister than I.  In some ways, it's good to see Fadilla eventually received her reward, trying to be our brother's coddled pet during the years of his reign."

Oh, most certainly a formidable rival in the legacy of honored Roman matrons.  He understood, at that moment, a sense of fatherly pride warring with his deeply buried relief, the woman she had been wasn't lost, after all, in the depth of her sorrowing soul.  She'd been hiding though, a broken spirit, the shards of a shattered sword, needing only the recourse to gather the pieces of her torn will and re-smelt them, forming a blade, sharper and more terrible than the form of her previous incarnation.

            "Ah, well, be that as it may, but Claudius also has your sister—his new wife--to thank for her close affiliation with Marcia, whose skills in the bedroom must have been tantalizing enough for Falco to pardon her previous employment with your brother," that observation eliciting both eye-brows to arch with royal expectation upon Lucilla's patrician façade. 

"Falco being a key conspirer, I assume," the daughter of Marcus Aurelius speculated. 

"And Marcia, his new-fangled mistress, endowed with Eros' blessings to the point of becoming his key confidant—thank the balls of Mars—and hasn't a wit more ability to keep from blabbing the details of a good scheme any better than a feline in her heat can keep from breeding with a tomcat." 

To his heart's joy, his sardonic statement drew an unexpected chortle from Lucilla, muted and tired-sounding, but lifting for all it was worth. 

"From Sosius Falco to Marcia to Fadilla," the daughter of Marcus Aurelius pondered—seeming indifference. "Thus, Falco's plot was nipped in the bud before it blossomed to full flower?" 

Gracchus' short laugh was full of ironic amusement, clearly enjoying the task of rendering his version of the treasonous episode.  "Not if you consider nipped in the bud entailing Pompeianus being dragged all the way through the maze of streets that is our sprawling, turbulent, chaotic Queen of Cities. From the Palatine, across the jumble of the Campus Martius, to the Praetorian Fort upon the Capitoline, the eager usurpers managed to bestow the honorifics of Caesar, ready with a crown of laurel, before they realized he was appealing to the pity of the well-intended masses, bewailing his ill-health—gouty joints, rheumy eyes, and an increasingly forgetful mind.  One can't be expected to rule an empire when one cannot even distinguish between his daughter and his daughter's pet monkey from Arabia."

             "My, he's become awfully decrepit for a man who was reported to be hunting at his leisure, enjoying his freshly acquired rural estates in Gallia Narbonnensis over the spring, additional luxury from Fadilla's dowry.  What is he, forty-five at most," Lucilla's tone, full of dripping sarcasm.  "He knew Pertinax and his accompanying Guard had already been alerted in Ostia, didn't he?"  The animated sip she took or her wine provided just the correct amount of eloquent detachment to her question.

            Gracchus wasn't fooled, sensing there was a slowly kindling fury beneath her newly collected composure.

            "Of course," he answered. "This hasn't been substantiated by any of Gaius' retainers, but my guess is Claudius gambled on Pertinax' s clemency, knowing full well Falco's faction was coming to fetch him to the Praetorian camp.  I imagine, some hours before his self-appointed supporters arrived, knocking on his doorstep, he discreetly sent off a hurried dispatch to Ostia.  Fadilla may be as callow as a virgin on her wedding night, but she knows her husband is discriminating in his political alliances, enough to realize he hasn't the influence with older, established members of the senate—particularly the consuls--to retain a prayer's breath for a bid on the throne." 

Lucilla's face was drawn, livid-pale in the shadows of the room, her eyes, wide, normally a wondrous muddling of ocean-green and brown, catching, for an instant, the sputtering flare of the lamp on the dressing-table, striking to a simmering dark-gold.

"It's unfortunate she didn't have the same imperative toward moral duty when it came to preventing Commodus' ascension," her brittle voice echoed into the corners of the gusty bedroom. 

            The air had become heavier with the tang of impending rain, and Gracchus could see, peering out the window, past the billowing curtains, clouds sweeping across the sky upon the impetus of furious, atmospheric winds chasing from the heavens to the earth.  Those winds, swirling puffs of dust through the work-yard, causing a riotous cracking of branches and leaves from the trees at the far perimeter, reached his ears through the enshrouding night. 

            His manner became more solemn, losing that momentary, refreshing start of humor with which he'd begun the recounting.

            "The full assembly of the Senate had turned out by the time Pertinax and his attending Guard arrived," he said haltingly, watching as the daughter of his heart gripped the stem of her copper wine-glass with white-knuckled fingers.  

            His own goblet previously forgotten, he took a long swig of the beverage before proceeding, suddenly needing the comfort of its suffusing warmth poured into a belly gone cold, a spleen dreading the effect his words would have on her hard won calm.

            "It was obvious, by this point, who the ring-leader was in organizing the usurpation. Many of the witnesses—whether because they genuinely believed Sosius Falco should have been tried for treason as an Enemy of the People, or they were simply wanting to dissociate themselves from a plainly failed mutiny—were calling for outright justice," Gracchus explained.

            Far out to the east, lightening flashed, pure and cutting brilliance--knives of white-lashing across the night-tapestry of the gods' domain—speeding down from the heavens, signaling the squalor of an imminent storm blowing up across the open countryside. 

            "Quintus," he revealed softly, "your Quintus, Lucilla, argued for Falco's innocence like the fabled Cicero."

            Drawing in breath, this beloved daughter of his soul, exquisite gem amongst women, closed her eyes, veiling the naked pain in their orbs before it could betray her, and leaned her head back, pale skin tight over chiseled features like white death.  

            Silence filled the room, into which the only sounds were of the women's quiet, regular breathing, an occasional rustling of fabric when Sekt-aten shifted upon the stool, the rising and dying away of storm-driven bursts pummeling the stone walls of the villa.  

            He said nothing for the moment, letting Lucilla work through the turmoil she must have been re-experiencing all over again. 

She finally mastered herself.  When she was ready, she raised her head, breathing too regularly to not be thinking about it, her speech just a little too controlled, the expression of hurt and betrayal not quite hidden beneath her exhaustion. 

"How...how could he," she rasped brokenly.  "Gods, how could he," she uttered again in cowed disbelief, shaking her head.  "I thought he understood…understood how I hate that man almost as much as I despise Virius Lupus."

Her eyes rested on him, full of accusation, shining, but no tears spilled forth. "You say he loves me, Gracchus.  Do you suppose this is how Quintus demonstrates the honesty of his sentiment—by defending a man who deserves to suffer the death of traitors?  The man who conspired with the murderer of my son?"

The ex-senator was sure her quaff of wine had been over half-full; became easily finished off with two deep swallows, promptly re-filled by the unpretentious gesture of the Nubian woman pouring more of the silken-red vintage into Lucilla's goblet.

He nodded permission for his own goblet to be topped-off when Sekt-aten proffered the glass beaker at him silently, before resuming her place upon the stool, shrouded by the cloak of shadow and lamplight.

            His voice was full of concern for her distress.  "In the end, dearest, there were very few alternatives for Pertinax to follow.  Your brother's policies of taxing and commerce made an awful lot of people wealthy—not necessarily the choicest personages," placing a comforting hand on her forearm as he continued.  "The Praetorians are even more dangerous, thinking of themselves as demagogues, beholden to no moral conscience except the sound of coin in their personal coffers, and gross displays of entertainment amongst the City's inhabitants. You see, Helvius Pertinax's reforms have not been applauded by an even reception from all factions."  

            The sound of thunder rumbling out in the distance across the countryside seemed to signal Lucilla's own personal struggle coming to a final closure.  She sighed resignedly, something passing, being freed from her inner-thoughts with the sound. 

 "And Quintus understands the thin line Pertinax walks between the Senate, the Guard, and the People right now," she said, placing slender fingers of her hand atop his—fond gesture of long time familiarity.  "I follow your reasoning perfectly, dear Gracchus.  It still makes this no easier to accept."

            He simply shook his head, not sure how to respond, deciding forthwith, her remark was rhetorical.

The lamp by the table sputtered in a strong rush of air entering the room just then, swishing the curtains out, and catching Lucilla's attention so that she turned away from him. Her gaze was lost to the black darkness of the emptied work-yard from whence the errant draft blew in, lifting cinnamon wisps of her hair so they spilled down her back and arms, separating her profile from his view.  

            Unable to see her face through the web of her hair, her posture reflected contemplation, so withdrawn had she become--an utter sense of motionless integrity. He thought, unbidden, of Pygmalion's statue in the reverse--Lucilla finally giving up breathing, and rather than a sculpture coming to life, life had fluttered away with the advent of the blustering storm, swallowed by the night to leave behind, in place of warm, living flesh, only an exquisite creation of marble and stone.

            Drops of rain began to spatter dully on the stone window ledge.  

            Lucilla broke her deceptive stillness, reaching out to latch the shutters.

At which moment, the most deafening--_BOOM_--Gracchus, or either of the two women, ever heard, erupted directly over what seemed the very roof of the villa, lightening flashing a blinding crack as the foundations of the domicile vibrated to the core of its indwelling, timber base-work.  

They all seemed to react at once: Lucilla flinching back from the window, Gracchus covering his ears against the shock of pure sound snapping through the air, and Sekt-aten, flying off the stool with a startled yelp, as though a heated iron poker storked her in the backside. 

It was the first uncontrolled movement Gracchus had seen the ebony-skinned woman exhibit all evening.  

He waited a few short-breathed moments before uncovering his ears, his inhalations muffled to his hearing, not sure if another sonic blast would hammer the villa yet again.  Lucilla sat, frozen up against her pillows, her Nubian handmaid visibly trying to regain her own equanimity, one long-fingered hand resting around her neck, awed terror evident in the gasping rise and fall of her breast.  

The awareness of humanity's humble motives, cast insignificant before Nature's random displays of grandiosity.  It was an uncomfortable perception for all three of them, with the flashing, blessedly silent, lightening illuminating the room—blazing white luminance, a subtle reminder of the heavens' potential for unrestrained episodes of elemental fury. 

Amid the flares of intermittent blue-white light, the driving rain pattered like dull stones tumbling into water, washing over the sill, and pouring down the wall next to the bed. The confusion of shifting shadow from the lamplight, combined with the flashing bolts of electric discharge, his ears still ringing with the aftermath of the thunderous shock, Gracchus wasn't sure if his senses hadn't been distorted in their interpretation of vision or sound. Cautiously, he uncovered his ears, seeing Lucilla with equal hesitancy, shift across the bed to finish drawing the shutters closed, blocking out the assault of rain. 

Seeing her shoulders shaking as she leaned back against her stacked down-pillows, her head thrown back, exposing the queenly column of her throat, her hands crossed over one another, about her neck.  Hearing…hearing he wasn't sure what, at first; then, figured out it was the unfamiliar sound of her mirth, cleansing and freeing where tears could not go, and anger could not purge. Laughter, scratchy and grating in the back of her throat, morbidly reflected the infrequency of its occurrence in the last months. 

"Oh--," she gasped out, failing to finish her thought, the rail of her hesitant amusement overcoming her ability to speak for a moment. "Oh," she tried again, "are we such cowards as that? You would think none of us has ever seen a summer storm," she managed through the sudden hilarity. "Gracchus, you looked like a boy who just spent a night in a graveyard, daring the ghosts to come and haunt you, surprised when they took you up on your presumption, and Sekt-aten—," She never got the rest of her analogy out, doubling over in the bed, letting the perplexing, contrary laughter drain the rest of her words, Sekt-aten's velvet-resonating glee float into the blinking gloom from the corner, echoing her lady's merriment.

He could have chosen to take affront, arguing his reputation for humor, notoriously compared to a pile of wet wood for all the joy he seemed to derive off of other's fun--especially when it was at the expense of his own mannerism—would become irreparably damaged.  

Except in the strict code of the laws governing his life, his demeanor toward others, one of those absolutes that had always gone unstated—when Lucilla laughed, there was no resisting the enticement sharing her joy, however short-lived.

Eventually, almost reluctantly, she let go of a last chiming remnant of her mirth, silence filled with the tapping of rain on wooden shutters, the ever present hush of wind, quaking thunder in the skies sheltering the vast expanse of rural Latium—the clamor of Nature taking precedence in the obscure aura of flickering lamplight captured in the bedroom.  

            She studied him with a steady, frank gaze, unclouded by remnants of her earlier sorrow, her tone dry, ironic when she enunciated the evidence of her pondering mind.  

            "You know, Gracchus, I must admit, regrettably, I've neglected to be completely forthright with you…up until now, of course.  As novice as I might be to interpreting the imperative of divinity via the signals of elements, even I couldn't miss the command of the gods, plain in resounding thunder."

He felt a wiry eyebrow climb in confused query, the reflexive crease form across his forehead.   

"I feel it's only fair to exchange a tale for a tale," Lucilla's eyes teeming mimed glee, her voice tinged with dulcet, syrupy mockery.  "You see, your brother's wife and your niece were in Rome during the Calends of May, and Maximus is possibly—most probably, if their talents for physic are worth any amount of recognition—still alive, somewhere upon the Isle of the Mighty, by now."

Neither of them paid heed to the low gasp of astonishment from the corner where Sekt-aten remained seated.

            "M-M-Mmm-," he stammered dumbly, like a tongue-less idiot, stuck on the initial syllable of the first word trying to squeeze past lips numbed with shock.  So much for his renowned urbanity; the implication of Lucilla's little revelation was no less shattering to his cultivated self-possession than if she'd simply said, _the entire city of Pompeii was covered by dust and ash; Atlantis fell to the bottom of the ocean, Gracchus._

            Across her beautiful, fine-molded features, Lucilla's smile could have been the sun sweeping brilliant and sparkling over winter glades, swathed by spruce and conifer, crystalline icicles a spectrum of dazzled purity. 

            "Try again, dearest Gracchus," she patted his hand sympathetically. "I realize the bewilderment such news can provoke."  

            Of course she did.  There was just a little too much sly, catlike maliciousness in that smile for her not to realize the weight of what she just pronounced.

            "Maeve and Nemhyn?" He spit out, finally—forcefully, his voice cracking like a teenage boy's.  Stupid question--no one else in his family fell under the description of such kin-labels. 

"I'm sure you're wondering why they didn't reveal themselves to you during their sojourn in our Eternal City.  In my humble opinion," she offered with faux-sweetness, "I would venture to guess it had something to do with avoiding a holding cell right next to yours beneath the dank halls of the Coliseum."

            Her statement, as she'd intended, broke through his dulling fit of incredulity, eliciting a sudden, reluctant chortle.  "No doubt," he conceded, quieting to listen as this enigma of woman-hood, before him on the bed, began to impart the episode of her rendezvous with Maeve—formidable wife of his brother--beneath the Arena's dismal, imposing archways. 

            Noting the tightness over Lucilla's brow, hearing—as he could hear the storm blowing with wailing fury outside--a stricture in her voice, the faint indicators of a presently buried grief he wasn't sure would ever completely disappear from her demeanor.  Gracchus' silence was one of calm patience while the daughter of his soul described how she'd dared entry into the Holy Citadel, disguising herself, and the other two women, as masked priestesses--all to spirit the inert form of a hero-gone-legend out from the clutches of death and intrigue always pervasive in the Capitol. Pervasive, like the rancid odor of the shanty neighborhoods on the lower banks of the Tiber; the ceaseless stream of peoples flowing in and out of the City's gates when the night-guard monitored the arrival of newcomers into the arms of the Rome.       

            Amid the low rumble of thunder growling harsh and distant in the night beyond, Lucilla, at length, fell quiet upon the conclusion of her story--rain against wooden shutters, a disappointing anticlimax given the allegations potentially arising should news of her revelation be discerned by the wrong ears.  

"A palace drudge," was all Gracchus could think to add. For a moment, he fancied hearing Maeve's pointed remark, the cadence of her northern brogue softened by Latin inflection. "I can't imagine my brother's wife was overly felicitous in discovering how--or rather who—you used in replacing Maximus' honored status upon his pyre to conceal the—", coughing with emphasis,"—_ehm…unexpected departure." _

            Lucilla's responsive glance was full of barbed irony. "Your family does have some rather peculiar mores regarding slaves and their rights, Gracchus; ruthless compassion not being one of them."          

"Yet, here, in front of your own slave," he nodded toward the shadowed corner where Sekt-aten continued to reside, "you detail a potentially treasonous act with as much guilelessness as if the Nubian were your own mother. And Antius always called me the blind idealist," he laughed dubiously, the sound of dry leaves in autumn.            

Lucilla, gallant lady of Roman nobility; daughter, wife, and sister of Caesars—mother to a murdered son—may not have joined in his amusement with open laughter this time, but there was definitely a keen humor shining in her eyes, in spite of the wan gauntness scrawled upon her pallid face.  

"Think what you will, Gracchus," she said wryly. "You always have.  But maybe you would trust her more if you knew it's because of…_my Nubian_, that Gaius is safely nursing his little snakebite holed up in his own country-estates, tended by his latest feminine exploit, rather than suffering a slow death of asphyxiation, foaming at the mouth, tongue swollen, and seizing like a rabid dog."

Frowning, Gracchus turned to consider the shadowed form of the woman enshrouded by partial, gilt-flamed illumination, sitting—an ebony statue of mystery--in the corner by the dressing table.

Onyx-eyed, the Nubian held his gaze with reptilian glitter; her slow smile—pearly teeth, even, sharp, and strong—mirroring an equally reptilian chilliness.

"Snake-handler," she vocalized in tones like silk-fabric hissing, gentle, to the floor.  "Egypt abounds with serpents, as Italia does.  I was one of Gauis' former mistresses…once.  During the time of our…liaison, we established an understanding. When we concluded our relation, he set me up with a man who dealt in the craft of serpent-kind, who knew what I had been in my own land.  He appreciated the expertise I could bring to his trade."

The ex-senator didn't want to ask, finding it a challenge to his long-practiced poise, in holding the obsidian flatness of her eyes. "What exactly were you, back in your homeland?"

Shifting forward on the stool, the dark-skinned woman's form came more into the flickering lamplight—glass and jade beads clattering as her intricately braided hair, gathered at her occiput, waist-long, fell over one bare-skinned shoulder, svelte black next to the incandescent white of her gown. From above high-boned cheeks, long-slanted eyes studied him over the foot of the bed, her heavy-lidded expression one, almost, of seduction.  For a piercing heartbeat in which he felt his pulse shudder through his veins, his breath quicken with—gods, was that desire—he could understand why Gauis had fallen under the enticement of this woman's dark sorcery.

Until her smile, a thing cold and completely inhuman, seemed to contort in the hag-like shadows writhing about the room, to a skeleton's grimace of mocking horror.

"Mistress of Anubis," she whispered, dangerous and serpentine, the Nubian's tone underscored by a sudden lashing of wind and rain upon the shutters of the window.  

The icy-wet blast strained the lock holding the shutters closed, the screech of wind leaking between the wooden slots belling the curtains out in an angry flutter, licking the low flame of the lamp on the table.

With the immediacy of crashing waves, the glamour of deadly beauty fell away from the Nubian's visage, and she leaned back upon the stool, her deep chuckle holding no trace of previous wicked temptation.  Gracchus relaxed at the sound of it, realizing the dark-skinned woman--daughter of a red desert land whose repute for magic usually caused the most stalwart, common-sensical of Romans to loose the contents of their bowel in quivering, superstitious fear—had been plying a ruse.

He glanced quickly at Lucilla, seeing her face expressionless, unreadable, watching him and her servant through the red-shadowed glow permeating the bedroom. 

The Nubian's explanation, stated in her normal, sweet-silken timbre, caught his attention once more.  "If men who traffic in the art of assassination using the Guardians of the Underworld don't seek to know the different types of snake-kin, then I am certainly not going to help them along by providing the weapon to murder a man who I once held a certain loyalty to.  It takes an experienced eye to decipher between the species of Egypt whose venom can truly kill an adult person, and the lines of serpents borrowing the similarity of appearance utilized by their deadlier cousins.  The latter are no more harmful than a child's puppy."  When Sekt-aten smiled this time, it held nothing more threatening than the pleasure she gleaned from fooling dangerous men in a game of their own making.

"I am from the land of the Nile.  Obviously, the snakes my former master and I dealt in were clearly those of the venomous type." 

It was said so straight-faced, Gracchus almost lost the implied wit—only to begin chuckling with deprecating ponderance a moment later. 

"Poor Gaius, he's going to be so disappointed when he finds this out," Gracchus insisted, catching Lucilla's eye, her tired smile an affirmation of his own dry amusement. "He was utterly convinced his constitution was simply _that indomitable, surviving an attempted assassination from a poisonous snake—_the old Sabine blood…not watered down by my Latin relatives, _were his exact words."_

The youngest daughter of the Antonii brought a hand to her mouth, trying to stifle a stubborn yawn contorting her appreciative snigger, failing in her effort as the deep, resonating sigh surmounted her attempt to speak. "Oh," she exclaimed, quirking a wry grin, semblance of apology. "Poor Gaius, indeed.  I think the wine is finally hitting me, Gracchus," she voiced, heavy with weariness, and—he thought—not a little exasperation at her own physical tiredness, impatient with the brevity of her recent recovery from a deep unconscious.   

Reading her lady's bodily signals, cued as any attentive servant, properly trained, ought to be, Sekt-aten was one step ahead of him, rising from her stool to assist Gracchus in getting Lucilla more comfortable in bed.  The dark-skinned woman finished arranging the pillows, tucking the linen sheet, as though the daughter of Marcus Aurelius were a young child rather than a woman just into her third decade.

Gracchus stepped back from the side of the bed, waiting.  Lucilla's head, upon the pillows, was turned askance, studying Sekt-aten who knelt to the floor before her lady's reclining form, fingers of both women, entwined, a lattice-work of ebony and ivory in the wavering flame and shadow. 

 "_Katabasis_," the dark-skinned woman's voice echoed the soft hush of wind, dropping its wailing tempest, only to rage back against the villa's sturdy stone-walls, blasting a furious gale of rain to rattle the shutters of the window. 

He didn't know if it was the Nubian's voice, or the sensation of glacial claws pebbling his skin, sweeping in with the lashing rain, defiant splashes of water managing to evade the barrier of the shutters, pooling along the inner-trough of the concrete-framed trellis.  "Don't fear your vision, Mother of Romans.  There are greater forces at work than the actions of a few abominable, self-serving men." 

Another whisper of air rose, sounding like the keening wail of lost souls, bringing an unusual chill to the room, out of season for a night abundant with the stifling humidity of late summer.

"That's what I am afraid of," said Lucilla, low-voiced and tired. "_Katabasis," she repeated then, a mantra of hope to comfort her bruised spirit.   _

Tresses of her hair curled, lifted in the ceaseless wail of the tempest outside, fluttering motionless to the edge of the linen sheet drawn at her chin. The evasive gust continued, swishing lacy curtains, molding past the Nubian's kneeling posture--the fine material of her white dress contoured against her sinuous body--then tugged at the hem of his own tunic, before trailing out the door in a whistling departure to the hall beyond.

The notion was quite plain to Gracchus, there were deeper meanings behind the women's words--allusions to events in the grove of _Diana Nemorensis--he was not privy to at the current moment.   _

            With a certain decisiveness, Sekt-aten kissed Lucilla's hand; then, rose to her feet, motion like the graceful weaving of dancer's arms, taking her leave with a bow toward Gracchus. Her eyes glittered with inscrutable darkness, burning over him just before she exited the small room. 

            Her parting action, the dark-skinned woman's expression, left him feeling more than a little agitated, for reasons he really didn't think he wanted to contemplate. 

            He shook off the uncomfortable impression, bending to stroke back the disarray of Lucilla's tangled hair, spread across the pillows.

 "You should rest, child," he advised gently, followed by, _daughter of my heart_—always the silent endearment. 

With a father's unstated love, the seasoned senator kissed her forehead, watching in the darkness, her reluctant eyelids begin to close, losing the battle to impending oblivion.

"We have discussed…delicate matters here, tonight. It will be no benefit to either of us, nor my brother's illustrious wife--," _oh Maeve, _what have you done_, he pleaded to the deity of his own wistful heart, and perhaps, the memory of an old love,"--nor our elusive general-turned-slave, if we are too tired on the morrow for thinking clearly on subjects posing the potential for danger this one presents."        _

He wasn't sure if she registered his last words. In the moments it took to straighten, cover the paces from the bed to the dressing table, and retrieve the lamp—flame and darkness casting wild shadows about the small room--he heard, just perceptible beneath the gusting rage of the storm outside, Lucilla murmur in a somnolent voice. 

"_Artos," a word, a breathless sigh, meaning indecipherable._

Pausing, he turned back at the doorway, but she'd already descended to the regular rhythm of true, good, sound sleep.

He hoped, facing back to the gloom of the outer hall surrounding the villa's insular garden, hers would be a dreamless slumber, as well.

I don't add addendums, usually—but this one might be necessary…I don't know.

**Firstly**—I apologize for my lack of knowledge regarding Rome's topography. Attempting to construct scenes from my memory (been there twice, hope to return innumerable times, and all I remember is the Forum was really long, I could have wandered through the ruins for days, and there were lots of hilly-streets) of how the City is layed out, and apply that to maps based on the ancient layout, is quite difficult, amid roman-britain, sarmatians, etc. etc.  Oh yeah, and life in general;) I owe a huge amount of debt to www.roman-empire.net; and bill thayer's elaborate, and hopefully eternal site, entitled the _Lacus Curtius_.  If people are interested, plug the title into a _google_ search.  I, unfortunately, don't remember the URL at the moment.;) 

**Secondly—**I'm lazy.  It was simply too easy (and maybe _Gladiator's_ script writers meant for this), in perusing online texts of Gibbon's _Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_, to utilize the convenience of the two Quintuses ("_Quintii_" hahaha—humor me;): Quintus Laetus Amelianus (Praetorian Quintus), and the Quintus Sosius Falco (senator Falco) for the first attempted coup against Pertinax.

Also, I have skewed history tragically, here, and will do so more, as the story evolves.  Lucilla was the sister married to Claudius Pompieanus; Fadilla (her older sister), managed to outlive Lucilla in truth, but again—creative license to have Fadilla marry the man, instead; plus, good excuse to insert new, potential character later on, next time we return to Rome.  

Commodus did have a concubine named Marcia.  Although the movie focused (oddly enough), on his uh…incestuous side, I frankly think it would have been more interesting to throw in the existence of his mistress.  Oh well.  Plus, it seemed natural she would have gone from the bed of the dead emperor, to the bed of his surviving senatorial support (Falco). Gotta get along, somehow, after your emperor bites the dust, and unless you were an empress, or lucky enough to be a widow, or had very generous/wool-brained male relatives, there just weren't many options for women, even well-to-do women, in those days.;)

**Thirdly and Lastly—**in my extremely scant knowledge of provincial royal families in the Empire, the upper/officer class of the Roman military machine, and how they dealt with their sons, I have been trying to find a reasonable explanation for how Senator Gracchus could be related to someone named M. Antius Crescens Calpurnianus (who was, in truth, an acting governor of Britain contemporary to the setting of this story).  I wish I had the book on-hand where I have found this (can cite title in next chapter), but it was not an unusual thing for families of upper-class nobility, to adopt out sons to families, say of senatorial ranking should they wish their own sons to have access to a public/political career in the capitol—an avenue which would otherwise have not been open to them. The family of the Sempronius Gracchii was an old branch running back to one of the older lines of Rome (and is probably more familiar from the events of the brother's Gracchii during the era of the Republic).  I know there are several inconsistencies with my construction of how these things worked in Imperial Rome, but, once more, for the sake of creative license, I see no reason why a branch of the Sempronius Gracchii could not still have been in existence by the time of Marcus Aurelius and Commodus, with connections to the senate.  

Anyway, for those who really get squelched-up over these kind of things, I apologize, once again, but—sad to say—we have one more chapter dedicated to a reminiscence of Gracchus', going into a little more detail of his earlier years—and a forbidden love.  

Then, back to Roman-Britain, Hadrian's Wall, Sarmatians, some new characters, and Maximus finding an ally in the most unlikely of creatures—a horse. 


End file.
